Wave Wacker Week

Well a grueling week on the pond is finally over. So what am I doing tonight??? I’m going back up there. I spent the last week up there fishing and pre-fishing for tournaments. The bite is phenomenal if you are willing to work a little. This was my 2nd year of fishing the Wave Wacker Tourney. There is much to learn on Mille Lacs and I’m cramming as much as I can since starting to fish this lake a few years ago. I still have along way to go.

I was able to enjoy pre-fishing with a few of my brothers and actually fished one MTT and the Wacker with my brother Rich. Monday I was able to get my brother Ray and his friend Jay out on the lake in the morning for a couple of hours. Ray doesn’t get out fishing as much as he would like and he ended up boating the 3 largest Eyes of his life on Monday. Here is Ray with his largest to date, a fatty . We spent the morning looking for BIG fish on the Flats. Not necessarily good time spent for pre-fishing but fun none the less, especially putting your brother, his friend, and yourself on nice fish all morning. We boated more than our our fair share of 22-27” fish that morning along with a nice slot. We targeted a well known mud flat (I think Kooty found it last year and calls it Magellan ) and worked the edges (24’-32’) rigging leeches on #6 red hooks with red glow bead on 8-9’ snells. I used a drift sock to keep us at a slow speed (.7 mph and under) and my Vantage trolling motor to keep us on the edge or in the strike zone 100% of the time.

Pre-fishing went ok, and I had located some decent slot fish, that seemed to average about 18” with some low 19’s mixed in. I was hammering these fish pulling spinners and crawlers again working the edges of the flat I was on. I also had located a similar school of slot fish on a rock / gravel area located inside and close to a very well known East side gravel location. I was pulling a spinner on a 3 way with a 1 3/4 oz bell sinker. The favorite pattern seemed to be a red/gold/black #3 Indiana Spinner. A close 2nd was B FISH N’s Hot Perch 3 hook crawler spinner. I used about a 7’ lead from the 3 way back to the spinner. The speeds seemed to be good from .8 to 1.2 mph. My plan was to find schools of fish that were not too heavily pressured from either tournament fisherman or other fisherman in general. I tried to find schools that were not on “Common or Community” spots. A hard thing to do on Mille Lacs, but I believe I had found such locations.

Come day one of the Wave Wacker, I had my day planned out and was going to hit my mud flat first and Gravel rock area 2nd with a few others up my sleeve if I needed. The tension at take off was intense as everyone anticipated the next 2 days and the grand prize of $75,000.00. Day one morning we were greeted with strong winds but not unbearable. Once we reached our spot we started fishing pulling spinners like I have been in this location. This school of fish seemed to be feeding from 8:30 until about 11:30 am during pre-fishing. They seemed to be a little slow showing up and a little tight lipped. We caught a few 17-17.75” that went back into the lake on our first few passes as the plan was to keep 18” or above (something I would pay for later) . Finally the fish were stacked up on the edge of the flat like normal, but they were not biting. I had a decision to make as the morning was starting pass as it was now after 9 am. Do we move or switch things up. Well, I made the right decision and decided to switch things up. I threw out the 2nd drift sock and we still were moving along quite fast, but Rich instantly hooked up rigging with leeches a nice 18.5” went into the box. This was the story for the next hour or so as we had to weed through the overs and sub 17” ers, to put 2 more fish a 19” and 18” into the box on the next 2 drifts. Something was up with the weather as you could feel it. The wind really started to kick on the end of a drift as we started back up top again. The wind was howling and the waves continued to grow. What I thought was bad news as our rigging speeds were reaching and going over 1 mph, turned out to be good news. Rich and I went on a big fish tear. Perhaps what triggered their bite was the weather change????? Rich and I experienced a drift where we caught a 27" and a 27.5". Then still on the same drift, I set the hook on a very large fish. As it hit the net it had a HUMUNGOUS head. As it laid on the floor, my thoughts were no way that thing hits 28”es. As I laid it next to the “Judge” lying on the floor it was close. After pushing the nose to the end and pinching the tail it went barely 28”es, I flipped it and it went 28.25”easily . High Fives went around the boat! (before we brought it to the scale it had touched 28.5" sitting outside on Big Point.), I just put my rig back in the water when I boated another one that taped out @ 27 7/8", and the next thing you know Rich hooks into one that is just sitting on bottom and the drag is slowly pulling out the fish is not budging. Rich finely starts to make ground on the fish before it starts to go on a few long runs with the drag screaming. One last dash and "pop" she is gone. He got broke off on what I believe was our biggest fish of the day. That was all on the same drift. The bite slowed way down from the big waves. With it now just past noon, we made the decision with the bite really slowing to at least give us a FULL BAG to weigh with a BIG FISH in the box. We made another 2 drifts, picking up 2 more 17”ers that were put in the box giving us our six fish to weigh with our one BIG FISH.”. We still had room to make 2 more upgrades if we could find them. We were prepared to leave this spot and had some big waves and distance to cover to hit out next spot just a little over halfway back to the check in spot. I’m not sure exactly how big the waves were, but they were the 2nd largest waves I have been in, on Mille Lacs. I overheard one guy at Dinner say that he has been on the lake for 20 years and he never saw 8 foot waves until today. We ended up only upgrading one fish, by replacing a 17”er with a 17.5”. Giving us 7 fish in the box, we ended up weighing a 17” and a 17.5” fish, while we threw back some 17.75” ers earlier in the day. That may not seem like much but in any tournament on Mille Lacs, hundredths of pounds means a big difference. Ask Tuckner :rotflamoa: Rich and I ended up day one .4 lbs out of 5th and .08 lbs out of 8th. Every fish and ounce counts on this lake. As many are aware the 2nd day was canceled due to weather and the day one standings were considered final. Congrats to all the place winners and there were some from IDA. Some of these guys really know how to hammer some big slots. There was one team that had 13.5 plus pounds of slots, averaging over 2.25 lbs each

It was truly a great learning experience for me in my young tourney career and one that will not be forgotten. The fish population is very healthy and the number of 22-26” fish in the lake is phenomenal. I even caught plenty of 6-12” ers to let you know the future looks strong also. The MN DNR gets a lot of grief, but I have to say, that what ever they are doing on Mille Lacs to control the population… KEEP on doing it. It was not many years ago that this body of water was referenced to as the “Dead Sea”. It is far from that currently as I took fish on: Casting Cranks, Trolling both Open Water and Break-lines, Rigging, Puling Spinners, Corking Bobbers during the day and night, and even pitching some plastics produced some fish. I would like to extend a HUGE THANK YOU to Gamehide, Northland Concrete & Masonry and Stone Construction, Inc. for helping to make this week possible and their continued support is very much appreciated.

I’m headed back up to Mille Lacs tonight to spend the weekend with Stacie before she leaves for out of town business trip. I hope to see you all on the water and make sure to take a kid fishing this Summer. Until next time!

*CLICK ON PICTURES TO ENLARGE*