Mille Lacs Lake Walleye Fishing Crankbait Report

Every year I truly look forward to trolling crankbaits via planer boards and leadcore out in the open basin of Mille Lacs while targeting suspended walleyes. This year my anticipation was at an all time high considering I just received my new Skeeter WX2100 purchased from The Skeeter Boat Center. I’ve had my eye on this boat for a long time and it is truly a dream trolling machine!

The conditions on the big pond were brutal! Air temps were in the high 40’s and the wind was gusting to 20-30 mph. When we arrived at the casino boat ramp around 9am, we were the only ones there! Normally this ramp would hold 25-50 trailers on a given Sunday in June!

We quickly found out why – there were huge white caps out there and they were crashing into the shoreline. Even though it was pretty ugly, this is exactly why I decided to upgrade my boat to a Skeeter. However, little did I know that I would be putting through an ultimate test on its maiden voyage!

We slowly made our way out of the landing and into the open area of the lake where we were crashing into some pretty big waves. As I planed out I was amazed that we were quickly doing 20 mph in 3 foot waves! Not only did the boat handle the big waves but we were staying dry too! I asked Joe how fast did he think we were going and he said 10 mph? Nope – I smiled and said we were doing 25!

We made our way out to the mud flat area and started to search for some suspended walleyes. Typically these fish are not suspended out there until the tullibees show up. With water temps still in the mid 50’s, I was somewhat skeptical if there was anything out there, but I just had to find out! We scouted for awhile and really didn’t see much for sign out there around the mud flats. Scouting was difficult simply because of the rough conditions. We eventually decided to make a couple of long troll runs that had paid dividends for me in other years around early June. We made two long runs and 3 hours later, we had nothing to show for it. However, occasionally I would mark some suspended fish and when I did, they were usually higher in the water column (around 20 feet down in 35 feet of water). I started to mix things up a bit and moved our crankbaits up and I also started to downsize our crankbaits to #9 Deep Tail Dancers instead of #11s. My thought was that the baitfish are still pretty small at this time of the year and this has been a tactic that I have used in previous years especially in early June.

We made another parallel troll run moving a half mile away each time. Shortly into that run, we finally located some good sign on the sonar (suspended arcs mixed in with small baitfish). Joe was in the middle of adding another layer of clothing and I joked around stating that I was going to catch the first fish because he wasn’t ready. Two seconds went by and BANG we got our first hit on a Deep Tail Dancer – Bleeding Tiger off a port side planer board. Joe grabbed the rod (half dressed) and shortly after we had our first 2009 open basin walleye in the boat! The fish measured out at 26 inches. You would have thought Joe would have let the owner of the new boat catch the first fish…

We were on the board and we no longer had the monkey on our back! About a half hour later, the starboard planer started thrashing in the water and we were battling fish number two! I was up and could tell right away that this was a big fish. Or…. was I forgetting how they fought? Shortly after, the fish showed herself and we found out that it was in deed a solid fish. She eventually made it into the net as well and taped out at 28 inches. Not bad considering it was my very first walleye caught in my new Skeeter! This fish fell victim to a #9 flash perch – 150 feet back.

Now we had something to work with. We marked waypoints on both of those fish and they were about a half mile apart. Now all we had to do is work that area in and around those two waypoints and odds are we would find more fish willing to bite. Due to the big rollers, we would be limited to troll only with the waves, we would then have to pull up our lines, motor back into the waves and set our lines down again. The second run produces a 24 incher and another hit. The third troll run produced nothing. We were debating on whether or not we should try it again. I talked Joe into it and we stuck to our game plan. It was a good decision and every troll run after that produced more fish.

It certainly wasn’t action packed but we did manage to catch 9 walleyes with 5 being between 26-28 inches. Most of these fish were caught on #9 deep tail dancers (flash perch and bleeding tiger), 150 feet back behind a planer boards. Deep thundersticks – fire tiger and #11 DTD – Bleeding tiger also produced. Trolling speeds varied due to the wind and waves but I tried to maintain speeds around 1.9 mph. Another addition to my new Skeeter was to add a troll master on my T8. Wow – is that nice and it certainly paid big dividends for us to maintain proper boat speed.

Overall, I was very pleased with our outing considering it was my first time out this year in the open basin, the first time out fishing in a new boat and fishing in some brutal waves. The boat handled wonderfully and it was everything that I had hoped for. A big thank you goes out to Dan Meyer and Dave Markquart over at The Skeeter Boat Center. I have nothing but positive things to say about both of them and there customer service is truly incredible. If someone had asked me a year ago what boat I was looking to get into, I would have not even mentioned a Skeeter. However, the more I looked it into, the more I researched and the more I spoke with Dan and Dave along with other Skeeter boat owners, the more I realized that it was the boat for me.

The open basin trolling on Mille Lacs should only get better as the water temps increase (57 degrees yesterday). More tullibees will be making their way out there and the walleyes will follow. Find the baitfish and then you will find the arcs. Focus on depth, speed, choice of crankbait/color. React to what your sonar is telling you, put the pieces of the puzzle together and then share your experiences here on IDO!