Mille Lacs Lake Open Basin Trolling Report

When it comes to trolling crankbaits in the open basin of Mille Lacs, there are no dog days of summer. My experience tells me that persistency and patience will eventually pay off! I was able to get out for a day and half this past weekend and managed to put some fish in the boat. Joining me Thurs night on the water was my brother-in-law Troy and Bob Coborn – CEO of MicroBioLogics. It was a beautiful night to be on the water with ideal temperatures and very light winds.

Great for boating but it was almost too calm on the lake for fishing. The baitfish were spread out on the graph and the arcs were few and far between. We scouted and fished for over 2.5 hours and we only had one hit to show for our effort. Conversation flowed and we were enjoying the relaxing evening but time was flying by fast.

After eliminating three different locations, I decided to make a long run to an area that held some good fish for me last year in the month of August. As soon as I stopped and looked at the side imaging view on my 1197 Humminbird, the graph lit up with a lot of sign – the best I’ve seen for the last month.

It wasn’t long and we finally had our first fish in the boat. There was a lot of baitfish in this area with a few arcs mixed in. We stayed in this area until dark and managed to catch 6 walleyes for the evening. Two fish ended up being under the slot limit which made Bob and his wife happy to have some for the pan. The move had paid off and the best thing about it is that’s exactly where I was going to start fishing the next morning.

After getting home at 11:30pm and getting only 5 hours of sleep, my buddy Joe and I left for the pond again. The forecast called for rain and 10-15 mph winds but that didn’t deter us. We arrived at the lake around 8am and headed out into some pretty rough conditions. We had an 8.5 mile run to get to the spot where I had graphed so many fish the night before. Last year I would have thought twice about making this type of run in 2-3 footers in my old boat. But this is the reason why I decided to upgrade my boat this year. My WX2100 Skeeter sliced through the waves like it was no big deal and we were doing 30-35 m.p.h. With my old boat (18 foot fiberglass tiller), we would have been soaked and there’s no way I would have been able to surpass 15 mph. We arrived at our location in 15 minutes and we were completely dry!

We put down our lines and we caught only one fish on our first troll run – 21 incher on a leadcore set up with a purpledescent deep tail dancer. I was a little disappointed but knew there were fish in this area. The southeast wind forced us to troll perpendicular to my troll runs the previous night. That made things a little more difficult since we were only able to fish the core area for a short amount of time. Our second run we didn’t do much better and only caught one 19 inch walleye.

The wind was picking up and it was now raining pretty hard. I looked at Joe and said, we need to stick with it and find out what these fish want. I started changing crankbaits like a mad man. I would literally rotate them in and out every 10-15 minutes. What did these fish want? Finally we started to uncover a pattern and downsized our crankbaits (thanks to fellow IDO Field Staffer Ted Merdan’s recommendation). We managed to put about 6 walleyes in the boat (17 – 22 inches). We were having fun but now it was time to hunt for some big fish.

Once again, I was going through my crankbaits and pulling out colors I’ve never even tried before. Reef Runners, Deep Tail Dancers, Deep Thundersticks, Rogues, YoZuris etc… Finally we found the right crankbait/color combination – deep thunderstick (pearl grey ghost) 150 feet back on a planer board. This crankbait was our big fish ticket and as we ended up catching some really chunky 26-27 inch fish! Joe asked me if I ever caught walleyes before on that color. I calmly said “no”. He then asked “what made you try it?” I said, “I just wanted to make sure it didn’t catch fish!”

We worked hard and were rewarded by catching 17 walleyes and one northern for the day. It was now 6pm and we had to motor 8 miles back to the landing in 3 footers. Once again, we sliced through the waves and arrived at the landing in 15 minutes. It certainly makes a day so much more pleasurable knowing that you are always a short boat ride away from shore to avoid an approaching thunderstorm.

I can’t express the importance of scouting to locate these suspended fish. Once you find them, keep mixing up your crankbait selection/color until you find the winning combination. Everything that was working for me last month was not the same these past two trips out. Keep rotating your lures in and out and set time limits on everything you try. The reason these fish are out there is to eat. It’s up to you to find out what the daily special is!