Mille Lacs Lake, MN – Fishing Report 8.14.07

The open basin trolling bite even in late summer can still be productive if you put your time in on the water. The key to success is determination and reacting to the ever changing daily subtleties that happen in regard to speed, depth, crank selection and colors. What was producing in May, June and July is simply no longer working for me and my boat in August. One has to mix it up and try to find a pattern that is repeatable and hopefully turn predictable.

Joining me on Tuesday was fellow IDA members John Kutz (kooty) and Tim Ellis (T Ellis). The goal was to locate and entice trophy sized females suspended in the open water column chasing suspended baitfish like tullibees and perch. These big girls are out there for a reason and that is to eat a big easy meal without spending a lot of effort. The key is to try and figure out what these fish want on this particular day while keeping in mind of mimicking the forage base below.

Conditions were not ideal as we encountered three foot rollers for most of the day. The high winds and the thunderstorms the night before were also working against us. The lake seemed to be pretty stirred up and we never did find a large concentration of suspended baitfish and/or arcs. When we did locate balls of baitfish and bugs, it was usually very high in the water column and on top of our crankbaits below. We found the walleyes to be scattered all over the place and we simply needed to be patient while in the process cover a lot of water.

We eventually found what they wanted – #11 Deep Tail Dancers in Purpledescent color 150 feet back via a planer board. This has been my new hot color in August. After picking up our first two fish on this presentation, we adjusted and eventually converted over our other rods. We tried leadcore, but it simply was not going to happen. We also eliminated a lot of other crankbaits such as glass shad raps, rogues, grappler shads and bandits. One walleye fell victim to a #8 shad rap – purpledescent 120’ back with a 1.5 oz. snap weight. We tried this downsized crankbait thinking that maybe they wanted a smaller presentation, but we could not repeat another hit. Other than that one single fish, all others were enticed by DTD in Purpledescent color. We even tried other colors in the deep tail dancers which included flash perch, purple clown flash, rainbow trout, silver flash and bleeding tiger, but these colors did not produce either. All they wanted on this day was DTD – purpledescent – so that is what we gave them!

We started out making long trolling runs of 2 miles or more. Once we caught a couple of fish, we simply connected our waypoints and developed a south troll run that would accommodate pulling the planer boards with the three foot rollers. We avoided trolling against the waves due to the fact the planer boards would be jerking back and forth thus causing some erratic movements below in our crankbaits. One thing also to keep in mind is to make sure your crankbaits are well tuned. We noticed a couple of ours that were not swimming properly. There is an excellent online video clip in the In-Depth Outdoors Video Clip Column (made by James Holst) that illustrates how to tune a crankbait. I can not stress how important this is to putting fish in your boat!

We were a little under our goal trying to catch one fish per hour, however the quality was there and we ended up catching some bigger fish which included 5 walleyes between 25 to 28 inches. Both Kooty and Tim also caught their biggest walleyes of the year! Congrats guys! And Kooty takes double honors by catching the smallest walleye this year in my boat – which ended up being a 13 inch little guy that he snagged! Kooty still thinks that was our best hit of the day!

It was truly pleasurable fishing with these guys! With Tim’s enthusiasm and Kooty’s witty sarcasm, it made the lulls in between bites go very fast. It was also great to take a back seat on this trip. These gents are experienced trollers and it was nice not have to worry about setting drags, clickers and double wrapping planer boards. They knew exactly what to do and we really worked well as a team. This was another reason for our success! However, it is safe to say that I still would not trade them for my best fishing partner (my girlfriend – Tina). They both just need to work on their girly figures a little bit more…

I have many St. Croix rods and think they are some of the best rods in the industry. After getting many favorable opinions on IDA, I decided to place an order with Dean Marshall @ Everts Resort (www.evertsfishingresort.com) – for two 10’6” Wild River Series rods. This is my first time ordering from Dean and I can tell you right now, it won’t be my last. His customer service was outstanding because he too is a very experienced fisherman and knows a lot about the industry. Thanks Dean! I can’t wait to try out these new trolling rods along with my Shimano Tekota reels!

There are very few days left for the open water trolling bite. Soon these big fish will begin their fall patterns and start to migrate to the shallows. I’m excited like everyone else, about the full moon bite that will take place this fall on Mille Lacs. However, I will truly miss chasing these big fish out in the open water basin.