Walleyes under bobbers on the reefs of Mille Lacs

Finally had a chance to get back to Mille Lacs on Friday September 5th. Joining me were 4 guys from my technical project team at Boston Scientific to celebrate their accomplishments from 2008.

We left Champlin at 7AM and stopped at Meleen’s BP for snacks and bait – Paul has a great selection of leeches for this time of the year. For those who fish with bait in late August through the end of the season it’s a welcomed site to see good healthy leaches into September at a bait shop. One pound of larges and we were on our way to Hunter’s Point for breakfast. After a quick bite to eat we dropped the Ranger in the water and fired up the E-TEC HO and headed south.

The plan for the day was to bobber on the rock and gravel structures on the south end but to fish aggressively since we had 5 lines to put in the water. By fishing aggressively we were going to hit many reefs and multiple spots on each reef. Fishing only 5-10 minutes and then either adjusting our position by changing the amount of anchor rope or sliding to a different spot on the reef with the stealth of the MinnKota electric.

The first three reefs I hit were off shore reefs (not connected to the shoreline) with limited success but we did find a few perch and now I understand why the bite is a bit tough. As you can see from the image, the perch are perfect bite size morsels for the walleye now which makes for tougher fishing but will ensure the population is well fed for the future which is more important to me.

After 2 hours without a walleye, we made and adjustment and moved to shoreline reef structures and connected with our first walleye before the anchor was tied off.! From noon to 4:30 we worked our way around two different reefs in depths from 6-12’ and ended the day with 10 walleyes of which 7 were legal size and a few respectable smallmouth in the mix for fun! The day started out with sun and small chop but by 3 PM there was a small front moving through that dropped a little rain and gave us some 2-3’ waves for a fun ride in!

With 5 guys in my Ranger 621, tackle, full livewell, coolers, fuel, etc, I was impressed with Evinrude’s 250 E-TEC HO to power us up on plane with all of it’s low-end torque. We moved multiple times throughout the day and even gave the guys a fun ride back to Hunter’s showing how it’s not a fun ride until the prop is out of the water

Thanks to Dean, Tim, Keith and Andy for the fun outing and let’s meet the next milestone quickly so we can head down to Red Wing to see Dean at Everet’s and take advantage of the fine fall fishing there!

This is my last fishing trip in MN for the month of September; I am now focused on preparing for the FLW Walleye Tour Championship later this month on the Missouri River out of Bismarck, ND. Good luck to all the FLW League anglers fishing their Championship later this week!