Mille Lacs moonlight ‘eyes, October 2008 edition

Cooling nighttime air temps and moonlight-filled skies signal two great migrations. One of these is a flood of fat and sassy Mille Lacs walleyes into shallow waters to chase abundant fall baitfish. The second is an annual gathering of anglers equipped with kicker motors, line counter reels, and more crankbaits than you can shake a 10.5′ St Croix Wild River rod at, who launch their boats after dinnertime in anticipation of that first hard THUD and headshake of the night.

I arrived at Mille Lacs late last week, and immediately had a wet blanket thrown on my enthusiasm. Everyone at the resort we were staying at reported a slow bite. Molasses slow. 0-2 fish nights were common. A 10 fish night was unprecedented. When facing a long stretch of constantly changing weather, the last thing that a guy wants to hear is that the fish are "off". Undeterred, we spent three long, windy, often wet, sometimes thunderstorm-filled nights on Mille Lacs working hard to piece a bite together…and piece a bite together, we did!

Most people who are avid readers of IDOfishing.com reports are familliar with the basics of Mille Lacs nighttime trolling techniques. Most of the fish I have caught up there over the past 6 years are caught within 100 yards of shore over shallow structure….sand, rocks, weeds, and especially transitions between different structure types. I tend to favor areas that have mixes of all three structure types, so I can probe these areas and transitions between them without having to drive all over heck and back. This was a successful strategy on this year’s trip, as I found that active fish were present on precisely one structure type each night. The first night, it was rocks. The next night, it was over the tops and along the outside edge of the weeds. The third night, it was the inside weed/sand transition. Having the ability to check all of these areas during the course of a couple hours, rather than focusing on only one type of structure, definitely put more fish in my boat.

So, now you know the types of structure I was fishing. Let’s get to the gory details….we pulled baits at 1.6-1.8 mph (GPS). At times when the fish were really hot, working the biat by surging it forward followed by a long pause produced more fish. When things were slow, putting the rods in the holders gave us the hookups we needed. S-turns were critical. Baits? Well, many of our baits were 1-2 fish wonders, but there always seemed to be a hot pattern or two each night that outproduced all the rest. We caught most of our fish on rogues, X-raps, and bent-lip shads. We saw the moon for only a couple of moments all weekend, so most of our patterns were darker (rather than bright or shiny). I didn’t catch more than a couple of fish on husky jerks, and caught precisely zero fish on the old reliable firetiger HJ12. My routine was to have my father-in-law Tim fish with a confidence bait while I sorted (and sorted and SORTED) to find other baits that would also work. By the middle of the night’s trip, I would hone in on 3-4 baits that would provide fish, and we would then cycle through this small set to keep the bites coming.

The thing that struck me about this years trip was the tremendous girth of some of our fish. Look at the fish in this last photo. When the fish hit the deck, I said to Tim, "You just caught your first 10-pounder". The belly on this fish was fit to burst. As I was picking it out of my Beckman net, I realized that it wasn’t long enough to be a 10, but it was a heavy fish nonetheless. So, on the scale it went….this 26" fish weighed 8 lbs even on my digital scale. We had several 25" fish with 16-16.5" girths. These fish are WELL fed…and that is the reason that many guys are having slow nights right now.

Looking back at my notes, our average length over 3 nights was 24.2". We topped out at 27.5, and we only had one fish that would have been short enough for a hot grease release. This is why I travel to Mille Lacs in the fall….the chance to tangle with 5-9 lb fish on an entirely consistent basis. Is the bite a bit slow? Yep. Are you likely to catch fewer fish than you have in years past? I’d say so. But, do you still have a great shot at tangling with some sumos before the snow starts to fly? Definitely!

Come to Mille Lacs this fall….you won’t regret it!