Mille Lacs Lake Open Basin Walleye Fishing Report

The open basin trolling bite on Mille Lacs is heating up and more suspended walleyes are falling victim to deep diving crankbaits. Joining me yesterday for a day of fishing was Tim Ellis (T Ellis) and Joe Cavanaugh. It was a good day to be on the water with cloud covered skies and cooler temps. Fishing was pretty consistent as long as you were patient and you were willing to work for them.

One of the things that I added to my new boat this year is the use of side imaging sonar. This is a great tool when scouting for balls of baitfish and suspended walleyes out in the open basin. When I’m by myself, it’s not uncommon for me to sometimes spend up to one half of my time on the water looking for fishy areas. I like to motor a quarter mile or so, stop and then look at the side imaging view that covers over 300 feet of water. It gives me up to 10 times more visibility under the water versus a regular transducer sonar thus resulting in locating more fish at a faster pace I look for a few minutes motoring at 5 mph and if I don’t like what I see, I motor up again and repeat the process. If you are not marking fish or viewing suspended fish on your side imaging sonar, you will not catch them – it’s that simple.

A question I frequently get asked is where does one start to troll or even look for suspended walleyes out in the open basin? My response is always the same. Think of it in another way and ask yourself, where can you eliminate long stretches of water? The walleyes are out there somewhere and there are lots of them! Think of it as playing the old game of battleship as a kid. Get a map and connect the dots of where you want to scout. For example, pick out two flats that are a couple of miles apart and use that as a guide. Or run a parallel scouting line along a long flat about a ½ mile off of it and 2-3 miles long stopping every quarter mile. If that doesn’t work, make another parallel scouting line about a half mile away from your last one. And if that doesn’t work, move over another ½ mile and do it again… you get the idea. Unlike traditional walleye fishing, this has absolutely nothing to do with fish relating to structure. Sometimes I will locate suspended walleyes 2, 3 or even 4 miles away from a flat! They could be anywhere and that’s the beauty of it! You never know unless you go over there and check it out. Another way I answer the question of why I found fish in a certain area is because I could not locate them over there, there and there! Make sense? Set some goals on how much time you will spend on scouting and how much time on fishing. If you expect to go out there and troll 100% of the time, you will most likely be disappointed with your results. Be patient when scouting and try not to go out there and fish blind thinking that you will run into some fish while you’re trolling. It usually doesn’t work that way.

There are certain troll runs that have worked well for me over the years on a consistent basis. I’m not sure why the fish are out there year after year, but they are. However, every year it’s a little different. One of my key areas that I found produced a lot of fish for me in 2007 and I was able to fish it for over 2 months straight. In 2008, it was a different story and I never caught a single walleye in that area. I scouted the area several times throughout the summer and even fished it thinking that sooner or later they would show up. Well, it never happened. It just goes to show you that they move around from year to year and are somewhat unpredictable. That’s why consistently scouting is very important. However, once you do locate a good area, typically that will produce fish for a week or two or maybe even longer if there’s consistent weather.

With the water temps being at 60 degrees, the walleyes are higher in the water column than usual for this time of year. Yesterday we were running our crankbaits anywhere from 16- 20 feet in 35 feet of water. This will change as the water temps increase and the walleyes will go a little deeper (leadcore only caught two of our fish yesterday and we only used a couple colors). Keep this in mind if you are heading out there in the next couple of weeks. I’m going to do some more experimenting this weekend and run my crankbaits even higher in the water column. I feel this may produce more fish. I also downsized our crankbaits as well trying to match the profile of the smaller baitfish swimming around out there and that seemed to help.

A couple hours before dark, the wind made a dramatic switch. All day it was blowing out of the NE and then all of a sudden it switched and started blowing out of the SW. As a result, we encountered a scum line out in the open water. I’ve encountered this a couple of times while fishing Lake Erie and it’s usually a good thing when it comes to fishing. Baitfish have a tendency to congregate along this scum line thus attracting bigger game fish. However, last night on Mille Lacs we did not have any luck as we trolled in and around the line. Still, it was an interesting site as sea gulls and loons were gorging on bait. We finished the day catching 11 walleyes with 9 being over 24 inches. #9 DTD, #11 DTD, Deep Thundersticks and Deep Walleye Bandits caught all of our fish.

The open basin trolling bite should only get better as more tullibees make their way out to the open water. Find the fish first and focus your efforts on scouting. Once that’s completed, it’s just a matter of figuring out the rest of the puzzle such as choice of crankbait, color, depth and speed. Be patient and remember it’s about catching a few quality fish versus quantity.

This weekend I will be hitting it again so if you see a big skeeter acting like it has motor problems (throttling up and down, up and down) it’s most likely me doing more scouting!