Mille Lacs Lake Walleye Crankbait Fishing Report

Trolling the open basin of Mille Lacs Lake is in full swing as more walleyes are finally making their way out to the open water while chasing suspended schools of tullibees. Joining me on this day of fishing was my friends Joe, Jeremy (little G) and his girlfriend Jenny. We had this trip planned a couple of weeks ago but a tornado stormed through the Austin area and left Jeremy and Jenny with many downed trees in their yard and some damage to their home. Thankfully no one got hurt and with the help of family and friends, the clean up went smooth.

With the incoming cold front and high winds, we knew that fishing was going to be a little tough out there and we would have to work hard to put fish in the boat. The wind was out of the NE which is never a good thing for me on Mille Lacs simply because most of my troll runs do not run that direction. I had to run perpendicular troll lines to where I had caught fish two weeks earlier. Our first run we were off the mark as I miscalculated the direction of the wind. As I was reeling in our last planer board, a walleye smacked it and I quicky gave the rod to Jenny and she ended up catching our first 26 inch walleye of the day.

On our second run Jeremy boated a fat 27 inch walleye and we had another hit. We now had something to work with and we kept at it, mixing up our lures, speed and depths until we figured out a pattern. The crankbait of the day was a storm deep thunderstick in firetiger color trolled 150 feet back on a planer board. We also caught a few on leadcore trolling #11 Deep Tail Dancer in a purpledescent color.

Most of our fish caught ended up being between 25-27 inches. The exception was an under the slot fish which was 17.5 inches. We were also rewarded with a bonus 38 inch muskie that Jeremy caught! This fish was really beat up and it was also wore a DNR tag that was broke in half so we were unable to get the numbers off of it. This fish was caught 1.5 miles away from flat and just goes to show you that walleyes are not the only species swimming around in the open basin. Time to get out those muskie rods!

One of the additions that I added to my new Skeeter this year is the new Smooth Moves Seat Mounts. As many of you know, when the wind starts blowing, Mille Lacs can stir up some pretty big rollers in a very short amount of time. Tina struggles with lower back pain and constantly does rehab to control it. It was getting to a point where she could not go out fishing with me even if they were predicting winds over 10 mph. She simply could not bear the pain each time her spine would bottom out while the boat hit the waves. I decided to give these new seat bases a try and I could not be happier with the results. It’s simply amazing how these seat bases absorb the shock of the waves when motoring across the lake. We even were able to test them out in 3-4 foot rollers over the 4th of July weekend and Tina was pain free!

For more information on these Smooth Moves Seat Mounts – check out the video and see for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kjta5qUMZhs

or check out their website at www.smoothmovesseats.com

This summer has been somewhat crazy for me and I haven’t had the ability to fish as much as I normally do. It’s hard to juggle work, family, kid’s activities and everything else in the middle. Tina and I were married on June 13th and needless to say, there’s a lot of preparation that goes into planning a wedding. Our day was picture perfect and was truly a day that will forever be etched in our memory. Shortly after, our son Nick had major back surgery to help fight his scoliosis. His spine was curved like an “S” with an 84 degree turn in his upper back and a 78 degree turn in his lower back. His spine was so crooked it was starting to collapse on his internal organs and surgery was imminent. The 8 hour surgery was a success as the surgeon inserted two long titanium rods into his back hoping to alleviate some of his curvature. Nick is also a special needs child (cerebral palsy and autism) so it was very difficult for him to completely understand why he had to have the surgery. Well it’s been a grueling two week struggle for him, but he’s finally starting to sit up on his own and even taking a few steps. Soon he will be back to his cheery self making us smile once again.

It’s so easy to take one’s health for granted. I guess I’m in a unique situation that I get to be reminded daily through Nick how precious one’s health really is. All I have to do is look at his curled hands as he clenches ever so tightly on his fork while trying to take a bite to eat. Or watch him drag and pull his feet up to the next step as he tries to walk up the stairs.

Whenever things aren’t going my way and I start to feel sorry for myself or I’m angry at the world, all I have to do is look at Nick and it quickly puts things back into perspective for me. I believe all us occasionally need to be reminded and need to be thankful for our good health and our quality of life.