October Full Moon Mille Lacs Walleyes 10.14.08

Back in the saddle again and MAN did that feel good! I made my maiden Fall voyage up to Mille Lacs last night and it was the first time in 3 months since I seriously chased walleyes. Last night after work, I got the boat hooked up, hopped into the truck and headed North after swinging in and picking up my buddies Jason and Chris in East Bethel. We got to the lake right before dark and we were greeted with a South wind and a FULL parking lot on the West side. I chatted with fellow IDO’er Steve Vick and got the boat in the water. It had been way too long since I have been on this lake and I can’t believe it took until Mid October before I was able to start Fall Trolling.

We started out about 7:30 with the moon rising but hidden behind the thick cloud deck. We first focused on a rocky shoreline with temps right at 54 degrees. This area had been very good to me over the past few years, but lacking anything promising last year and the same was true last night. Not a bite. So we moved down into a Gravel / Sand to Weed transition. We switched a few baits and opted for a Clown and 2 dark profile baits with the moon not showing it’s brightness. This spot and set up did not take long to produce as Jason shouts out “Fish On”. Jason is fairly new to this Fall trolling with not many trips under his belt. The last 2 times Jason has fished with me out of my boat, he has boated his Largest Walleye to date. Once this Summer pulling boards and last year’s October Full Moon run. Well, when Jason finally pulled this fish up from straight down underneath the boat, I knew it would be a good one. But it even shocked me when it hit the bottom of the boat and was lying on the floor in the Beckman net. Well…. make it the last 3 times out with me Jason has landed his biggest walleye, because Jason landed an absolute tank of fish. The girth on this bad girl was enormous and she taped out just over 27”. Congrats Buddy!

We keyed in on this area that was very good to me last Fall and my Beckman net started to get the work out it was use to and needed after along vacation. Next it was Chris and Mr. Reliable Lazer Craw that went on a run of 3 straight fish. Finally, I had enough and had to switch over to a dark profile bait. Almost instantly after putting on a Lazer Craw, I felt that ol’ familiar feeling of my line going slack only to be followed up by my rod doubling over and that awesome feeling of multiple head shakes on the other end signaling “FISH ON”. This area finally dried up after a few more fish. So being it was my first night on the water, I wanted to search out a few areas and see what the weeds looked like. So I made a long trolling run to check out a few other areas that had produced in years prior. These areas produced a fish here and a fish there, nothing to fast and furious but a slow steady grind produced fish. Right in the middle of a pretty big lull, Jason’s rods starts to shake violently as we were cruising along an inside sandy weed line. You could tell this fish had some shoulders on it. After another nice battle Chris nets this fish and Jason lands his 3rd fish of the night at 27” or larger. Well being that we all had to be in at work in the morning, I made the call to call it a night but not before we hit our hot spot from earlie rin the night on the way in. This proved to be a good decision besides the point of losing about another hour or so of sleep. The ressult was we pulled a couple more tankers that taped out in the 26-27” range. The key here was the moon finally broke out from behind the cloud cover and we abandoned our dark profile baits that produced everyone but one fish the whole evening and switched it up to metallic. The gold Clown Rogue seemed to be the hot ticket with the Full moon finally showing it’s face. After landing our last fish close to the ramp we decided to call it quits and got off the lake at about a 1:45 am.

It was a beautiful night to be on the lake. Being able to adapt to the changing conditions and what the fish wanted was key to putting fish in the boat for us. We started out with the moon behind the clouds. This dictated to me dark profile baits like Lazer Craw Rogue, Black & Gold HJ12, and Root Beer Rogue (that’s what I call it ) Chris had a few short bites right away that we missed. So that was telling me the fish were not quite getting a good look at the baits so I slowed down from 1.8 down to 1.5-1.6 mph and instantly we started to hook up. Rocks were not working so we then switched (adapted) to a productive weed/gravel/sand transition area. Later in the evening the moon started to peek between the clouds and I was able to get fish a tad faster @ 1.7-1.9 mph. Then the Moon finally broke out and we switched our baits again to Clown, Tennessee Shad. Blue & Silver. I think the Super Rogues took most of the fish. One came off a bent lip shad and 2 or 3 off of Husky Jerks. Over all we had 6 fish that taped over the 26” mark and most of these were FAT TANKS. It was great to be out on the water again and what a change from hunting in 80 degree temps this past weekend to a cold 45 degree but very nice night on the water. I can not wait to go again. Unfortunately, it will have to wait until next week as I’m heading to SD this weekend to chase birds with Stacie and her family in the Hoven area. Oh well what is a guy to do. For those of you that know me, you guys know that today (October 15th) starts the best 30 days of the entire year. So hang on to your socks because it is going to be a wild, fun, exciting, and sleepless 30 days!

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