Open Water Trolling on Mille Lacs Lake Minnesota

Open Water Basin Trolling on Mille Lacs Lake 6.21.08

This past weekend Stacie, Rufus and I FINALLY got out on the water and decided to pull some planer boards on Mille Lacs. Overall it was a pretty decent weekend weather wise however, this first thing I noticed is the water temperature is still behind compared to my notes from the past few years for this date. I had 62-64 degrees on the water this past weekend. In the years past I have noticed that 65 degrees is the “magical” number to get this open basin bite started. Well, with the temperature forecasts of high 80’s for this coming week I would bet this last weekend of June would be the time to get your butt up here and pull some boards. Stacie and I made the trip to try to find some schools of bait fish, bug pods, and big fish for a trip we have next weekend with our good buddy Steve Huettl of Gamehide. What we found was the fish are not out there in full force yet and there are not a lot of bugs or bait fish out there… YET.

We hit the water a little late on Saturday morning as Stacie has been a traveling fool for work and wanted to stay home Friday night and get caught up on some things. By 10:30 am we were out in the middle of the lake searching for fish. After about an hour and a half of trolling with graphing a fish here and a fish there but no real concentration and no bites I switched up one of the rods a bit. The past few years I have been playing around with other presentations besides cranks out there pulling boards. One of those has been pulling spinners using snap weights. I rigged up a rod with a snap weight and a new product from Lindy called a “Shak-E blade” tipped with a Berkley Gulp crawler and threw it behind a planer board. Not even five minutes later after just making and outside S turn, the drag on my Tekota goes screaming as I watch the Shak-E board go racing backwards and it is FISH ON. After taking the planer board off I notice Stacie is really struggling with this fish and knew it was a nice one. Since we were going semi with the wind I flip the motor into neutral and let her fight this fish one on one. She gets to the snap weight and this fish is still down deep near the bottom. I go for the net as I watch the big bend in the rod make a few massive surges as the fish was pulling like a tractor. Finally, I catch a glimpse of the fish in the clear pond water and confirmed my suspicion that it was a dandy fish. After one last dash Stacie gets the head to come up and the fish sideways in the water before it found the bottom of the Beckman. We soon find out she has her largest fish of the year as it tapes out just under 28” and a pretty healthy fish to boot (pictured in the 2nd pic here).

The rest of the day we pulled the Shak-E Blade and a crank side by side. My speeds might have been a little fast to maximize the performance and the fish catching ability of a spinner or Shak-E Blade, but I was out searching for a bite, fish, and trying to cover ground, but it was working for us. We did not light the world on fire, but we caught fish and scouted out a few areas that traditionally seem to hold these roaming basin fish. The wind really picked up around 5 pm just as we left Brad Juaire and his group after chatting with them for a little bit. Stacie, Rufus and I headed in then and later met his group for a few drinks at Hunters. It was great seeing you again Brad. I love to chat about big walleyes and monster. That is exactly what our conversation turns into every time we get together.

We headed out later on Sunday morning again and were greeted with some pretty big waves and took our time a little bit heading out searching for more areas that could be holding fish. We found the same thing. A few fish here and a few there, but no really big cluster of bugs, bait fish or fish to concentrate on, so we ground it out again and just tried to cover water with similar results. Some pretty nice fish coming to the boat, but not at the torrid pace of the past few years for the end of June. We were greeted with quite a few different little fronts or storms through out the day. One minute you would be enjoying the sun and the heat and the next you would be scrambling for your rain gear as the temp would drop, the wind would pick up and the rain soon followed. Then 30 minute later the rain would stop, the wind would die down and you would be peeling it all off as the heat was too much to bear. Only to do the whole routine about 45 minutes later.

Overall it was a good weekend with only best yet to come yet on Mille Lacs. The bobber bite on shallow rocks in 12-16’ feet of water and the edges of te mud flats are quite good right now from that last hour of day light until about 10:30 pm. I have not been rigging or pulling traditional spinners now for a few weeks, but by the sounds of it, that bite has been and still is a little off, but has been getting better and more consistent here in the last week. With the temps in the 80’s pretty much all week, I would imagine that the water temps will soon shoot up to more normal temps and the bite will take off with it. There was no real pattern I figured out or color that stood out more then others, except that Reef Runners Cheap Sunglasses did go on quite a tear on Sunday with three fish in 15 minutes and best color overall for Sunday. The first fish came within 3-5 minutes of putting it in the water. On the 2nd fish of the tear, I did not even get a chance to throw a planer board on as I clicked the lever over on the reel and the rod doubled over with a nice 25” eye coming to the boat. Then for the 3rd fish I was just adjusting my drag on the reel after getting the planer board in place as the drags starts to scream and the board was jumping for the 3 rd fish in about 15 minutes. Most bites seemed to happen on the outside corner, but quickening the speed didn’t seem to work as the best speed for me was trying to stay from 1.7-2.0 mph. Perhaps it was the change of speed that triggered the bite??? I hope everyone had a good weekend and I will be back at it this next weekend chasing those open basin roamers. If you see me out there come up and say . Until next time Lip is out!

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