This report will be somewhat of a short one since James, DeeZee Hooks and Bobber have kept everyone up to speed on what’s going on up that way. Well, this year October full moon has come and gone. I experienced another great week of guiding this year on the big pond. I take a week every October and spend it guiding on Lake Mille Lacs instead of on the moving water that I am more accustomed to back home here on the Mississippi river. If the full moon bite isn’t something you have had the pleasure of experiencing I highly recommend you do so at least once in your lifetime.
This years guide trips were a big success with plenty of fish to go round. We saw 24 to 46 fish a night during my stay with some really big walleyes in the mix on almost all guide trips I ran. I say “almost” because I did have one night that it was pretty tough going for my boat. I had some great company for the night but it just wasn’t our night to put big numbers of fish in the boat I guess. We did boat 13 fish but the size was off and we only had one over 26” for the night. I guess that’s why they call it fishing!The first few pics here are of a little fishing machine named Garett Rousu. He and his dad Jon spent the night in my boat last Monday. Not only did Garett get his bigest walleye to date he had plenty of action with several other fish making to the boat for him. This kid can fish! Thanks guys!
I concentrated my efforts in 6’ to 10’ of water on sand and gravel flats with heavy to sporadic weed growth. I never pursued the rocks as the above bite was giving me the fish I was looking for.
#12 husky Jerks in the Orange Craw pattern and Smithwick Suspending Super Rogues in the Lazer Craw pattern were my 2 best big fish baits. On nights when the big fish bite got a little slow, moving in shallower with #5 shad raps did the trick to put numbers of the 21”to 24” fish in my boat. Firetiger pattern seemed to do the trick on these shallower fish.
I’ll have the chance in the next week to get back out on my stomping grounds of upper pool 4 a couple of times. Be looking for a report on how the river bite is going by the end of next week. I would like to say thanks again to all who fished with me this year on Mille Lacs and I hope to see all of you again.
Until next year, I’ll see ya on the river!
This is a picture of my dad with one of the fish we had in the 28″ to 29″ range in the couple of nights we fished together. On this particular night we only had around 20 fish but only 3 of them were under the 25″ mark with 3 of them surpassing the 28″ mark
Nice fish dad!
Another one for my old man
And another
. This fish was just short of the 29″ mark 
. Can you tell he’s gettin tired? 
Here is Joe Lechtenberg with a big un
Nice fish Joe. Can’t remember exactly how big this fish was but by the looks of the picture it wasn’t half bad 
Joe strikes again
This is Joe’s buddy John gettin in on the action
This next picture is of Mark Cavaleri
. Mark and I had to work for every fish we caught this night, they weren’t coming easy for us 
The last picture of my trip to the big pond is of Mark Steinbauer. We had plenty of action and a bunch of fun this night
I am sure I’ll see you and Bruce on the river here soon 
Hey Garrett NICE fish there buddy…Awesome…
Looks like you had an excellent night trip..
HOPE to see you and your Dad on the river..