Late Report

[rodmaker]

Chris,

Excellent post. Your idea on the post you mentioned is a good idea.

I run 10 lb green trilene XT on my Shimano bait caster.

Give me an e-mail [email protected]

[minnesotatuff]

wow, thanks chris. that was a lot of typing and experience. :-) are you guys going up saturday?

im still getting boat control down for the lower speeds with varying wind & weather. add to that all the info you guys shared and it gets to be a lot to concentrate on and work out. ive always been a believer in keeping it simple. saturday, boat control will be better and im going to try to concentrate on feel to know where my bait is. however, it sounds like it is argueable as to whether it will be back far enough using 6/2 fireline. i do have a pole strung with mono though... i agree with rodmakers logic about that. its just i have to see someone outfish the fireline in the same boat first. thats the learning the hard way i spoke of before.

regards,

minnesotatuff

[midex717]

Well, yesterday was a sad day as the boat was towed over to be winterized....... . Anyway I found a few spare minutes to chime in and post our results from our rookie season of fall Mille Lacs trolling. We were only able to get up there on 3 consecutive Saturday evenings starting on October 20.

On Oct. 20 my usual fishing buddy, my 16 year old son, couldn't make it that night so my wife made the trip up. We fished West of Eddy's staying in the 4 to 10 fow range mainly pulling HJ14 in silver, firetiger, blue/chrome, etc. My wife caught her biggest walleye ever at 24" on a silver HJ14, and a nice 18" on the same lure. I caught a 27" Northern, a 13" 'eye, and a 20+ inch walleye that escaped at boatside on a blue/chrome HJ14. Our speed that night was around 1.3mph, water temp 52*.

Next Saturday Oct. 27, my son, and I fished the same area with no fish being caught. Around 9:30pm we zipped over to Indian Point, and tried the south edge of the rocks that slope out to the east from the island. I caught a nice 28" walleye on that same blue/chrome HJ14 over 14' of water. Speed was between 1.o to 1.3 mph with the strong North wind. All of the boats tracking over the rocks into the breeze looked like the Seventh Fleet! There was probably 15 boats all going the same direction, pretty cool looking! That fish was the only one of the evening....

This past Saturday, Nov.3 was a beautiful night out there. We again put in at Eddy's, and started out at Indian Point. Made a pass in each direction over the rocks, and decided to try the bay off shore from the casino. As we started out for that bay, I remembered a posting mentioning that there are gill nets north of Indian Point. Not knowing exactly where, or if the nets were still out there we decided not to go in that direction, and headed back over towards Vineland bay. We tried downsizing on this trip to SSR5, and SSR7 shad raps, a few HJ12's, a few Frenzys, and #11 floaters in many colors, firetiger, purple perch, black/bronze, blue/chrome etc. We s-turned as much as we could, varied our speed from 1.0 for a distance, to as high as 1.9 mph on occasion. I caught a 16.25" walleye on a SSR7 firetiger shad rap at 1.7mph, and my son got a 13" on a HJ11 blue/chrome at around 1.2mph. We only got the 2 fish, but it was a great night to spend with my son!

All in all we had a great time up there trolling cranks. We didn't catch the numbers that others did, but the experience that we gained was priceless. I want to thank everyone who posted on the subject of crankbait trolling on Mille Lacs. This is such a great site for sharing knowledge, and information! I can't wait to get back up there again next year! We wish everyone a happy, and safe winter season!!

[PerchJerker]

There have been a couple mentions of using mono for the larger line diameter. I don't use mono, but I'll run up to 50 lb power pro for the thicker diameter (equivalent to 12 lb mono) and to keep the sensitivity that is SOOOOOO important and that you can't get with mono. I use the thicker lines when I want to keep baits up higher in the water column, or when I want to get them farther away from the boat. I have my line counters spooled with superlines from 6 to 12 lb diameter.

That brings up another good point. Check your line counters for accuracy, and/or calibrate them to each other. Many are not accurate and the line you run and how much you have on the spool also affect how they read. The way I do this is to put my rods in rodholders, set them to 0, and walk the lines out to a mailbox that I know is 110 feet away from where I park my boat (it's important to use a distance that is close to what you'll be fishing, for example it doesn't do much good to test them at 40 feet or at 200 feet). That lets me compare my line counters to each other, and also lets me know if I'm off by more than 5 or 10 feet from what the actual measurement should be. I can live with 5 feet off but at 10 feet they're too far off and it's time to make some adjustments.

Another good point that was made in this post is that properly tuned crankbaits will run noticably deeper than out of tune crankbaits.

[Team Otter]

I think it's a darn good idea despite having a lot of information already available out there. When you talk to Paul, perhaps you could mention something about coordinating a topic like that with an HSO video.

[Team Otter]

You really go all out Hanson.

Well said.

[Borch]

Like Hanson mentioned there are lots of presentation tricks that can make the difference on a particular night. In regards to line I use 20, 30 and 40 lb power pro on most of my trolling rods. I like the feel I get especially when working around weeds. The heavier line helps me keep lures in a specific strike zone.

However, there are nights where mono will shine over the superlines and if you choose to abandon it all together you'll miss out on more fish. For example, the dive curve for the same diameter line is much deeper for the superbraides. It's not just line diameter but also bouancy differences. You'll run shallower when pulling mono. Another example of when mono gets the nod is on nights where the fish are hitting short. Even if you leave the rod in the holder with the braids due to the no stretch factor you'll miss more fish and have more come unbuttoned as they near the boat. On these nights the stretch of mono is your friend.

That said I run super braids more than 80 percent of the time when trolling. But after several missed and lost fish I'll change to mono and it's amazing the difference it usually makes on those nights.

Even though the fishing can be great on the deeper rocks and outside weed edges don't ignore the weed tops or the inside edge. In fact it's been the location of my best bite on one of my local lakes this month. Nothing like pulling a 10+ lb eye out of less than 5 feet of water! Like the floating raps the floating shallow rattlin rogues shine here in the skinny water or over weedtops.

Then there's the speed factor. I generally run slow compared to others. However with the warmer water temps I've had excellent results running the 1.5-2.0 mph even as of a few weeks ago. In talking with a friend who was fishing the same structure he report fish wanting it slower like .8-1.2 mph. Part of this I believe is lure selection and the water depth targeted. In general the shallower fish are more aggressive. So there are more willing to chase a faster moving lure. Also different lures run better at different speeds.

Fish are going to be where they want to be. Not where they were last week, or where an instructional video says they'll be. Some of my best nights have been when others have reported a dead night. There fish are always biting somewhere so don't be afraid to think outside the box.

Good Luck putting the puzzle together. It's a lot of fun!

[Dhenry]

The info shared on this website and amongst the members will make us all better fishermen. I'll add my two cents. There is no better way to get a jump start on catching fish than going with a quality guide. I've mentioned before that about six years ago I hooked up on a trip with James Holst and what I learned and was able to take from that one night trip has increased my fish catching and enjoyment of Mille Lacs ten-fold. It is one thing to go experiment on your own, but when you get in a pro's boat and are able to actually catch 20,30-60 fish your confidence in the techniques and lures talked about on this website is off the chart.

[MuleShack]

Otter:

80% holder, 20% in hand with the rod.

i was using the smaller cross over lock swivels.

The one thing i never did do was tune the baits. I just hooked em' up and threw it out. hey, now i got something to blame it on...

[MuleShack]

Tuff,

The DNR boat came in right after me. Then i was talking with him as i was loading up.

I was the only boat at the ramp while i was there.

Just as i was taking off, there was a boat coming in...looked like a white lund. I think it was the same boat that was launching as i was heading out to fish at 5:00ish.

[Borch]

Here's a crude drawing of tuning a crank. It can really make a difference. It's not just all about running true left to right.

I think I mixed up my right and left as we're facing the lure head on but you get the idea.

[Corey Bechtold]

In-Fisherman has gone into detail about "pinching" the nose of the crank down to maximize wobble. This does work but often one needs to tune the bait after making the modification.

Good luck,

Corey Bechtold

[cjac]

Just read the same thing....

To Corey Bs point: The most recent In-Fisherman has an insert from Stange on fine tuning the eyelet on Husky Jerks to get more "wobble" out of them, I read it and went to the garage with the pliers to play around. Also refers to what snap-loks (size) are best to optimize the performance.

Great way to get more out of what you have currently in your lure arsenal.

Chris

[MuleShack]

Great info guys....

The learning never stops

[cjac]

It takes some experimenting, I muskie fish and was working on a suick eyelet darn near every cast with the pliers for a while on Sunday morning, even down to the paint and finish in the eyelet itself. It all makes a difference. Snap-lok/leader connection, speed, and line diameter all play a part. Finally got it doing what I wanted, but every lure, presentation, condition can be different and make the lure behave differently.

Same applies to the walleye cranks. I've spent quite a bit of time and plier work to get them to swim like I want, or so I think they should look/swim! Even with the same lure, just a diff one out of the box.

One Fat/Shad Rap is not the same as another....

Chris

[Borch]

The infisherman crew had lots of crank modification tricks over the years. They were converting floating raps into suspenders long before there were suspending lures available by drilling and adding lead or adding water to plastic baits and then sealiong them up again.

I ruined a lot of lures before I got the process figured out.

[cjac]

Yeah, but rumor has it that between you and brothers and family in general there are thousands of cranks to "test" with!

I've done well with taking "out of box" lures and giving them a little tweak. What I like to call the "cjac" magic... Like Borch says though, there have been failures along the way. Fun times playing around with paint enhancements too, the idea of "blood red" features and paint is likely tied back to fingernail polish..... from who knows!

Chris

[minnesotatuff]

this is all really cool stuff! ...and then somebody tries something different like pulling shiners or redtails super slow in shallow water, or vertical jigging with a jigging rap and minnow head out on indian point...to be continued? hahaha...only if i try it and am lucky.

regards,

minnesotatuff

[Team Otter]

Rod in hand is better in my opinion, mainly for feel and changes in lure action and speed.

[MuleShack]

T.O.

I kind of thought the in hand approach is the better way to go, 2 weeks ago, i picked up my northern that way when i was twitchin the bait while trolling and he hit it on the lul.

Also FYI, i got that 25" tagged fish on that break line on the north end that you had mentioned. I worked it over and over but couldn't produce another.

I might have to try using the electric bow mount while trolling next time. if there is any wind, it is a biotch to try to keep the nose on the line and hold the rod and work the gps screen etc...with only 2 hands (with a console steering tied to the kicker). using the bow mount would work better to be able to hold the rod and steer at the same time. I tried back trolling for a while and that was easier to control the boat in the wind while going slow.

Just out of curiosity, does anybody know if you can get an extension handle put on a T8 yamaha? like i said, there is no handle on it now, it is console rigged for power and steering. but i could take off the bracket that ties it to the main motor. Does anyone know of a "arm" that can attach to the motor to steer it from a standing position?

Just a thought, as that way it would be easier to navigate and fish at the same time.

thanks

[rodmaker]

Try this also. When holding the rod, every once in a while give it a slow sweep forward, pause, and slowly go back to your original position.

[hanson]

Guess I prefer rod in hand, love to feel whats happening back there.

I'm also not a "set the hook" guy. When I fish hits, I just hold the rod and she'll either be on, or not. Pretty simple.

If you keep missing fish however, maybe change things up and put the rod in the holder.

I must say... there was quite the bit of info just shared!! Awesome!! Years of trolling behind some of that info as well. Thanks guys!!

[jig n' jerk]

I also like to hold the rod to feel the strike or if I pick up any weeds or if I am digging bottom. But I think the greatest advantage is being able to feel the strike. If I keep getting short strikes or fish shaking off I will let my rod tip back when I feel the strike to kind of feed the fish ( like when lindy rigging). This seems to greatly increase my hook-up percentage.

[cjac]

Hi all,

Just want to pass along a tip I picked from RK about trolling for muskies, which in turn applies to the walleyes.

With the superlines we're using today there is no stretch, so the tip was to set the drag as light as possible, to the point where a really solid forward move with the rod in hand while at trolling speed almost, but not quite, it lets out line. This way if a big fish hits, you're not in essence ripping the hooks thru the mouth and yanking the bait out of the fishes mouth and the fish can move and not be dragged along. If you envision it, it's like a tug-o-war between a 2000lb boat and if lucky a 10lb fish. You can easily tighten up, not as easy to back off in a split second. Lot different than the mono days of old.

I agree with Hanson, if she's there she's there. Fish hits with the boat going 1.5+mph on no-stretch line is equilivent to a decent hook set. Once on I might give a hit to make sure, but initially if its there, its there.

Chris

[cjac]

I forgot two other points:

1) If you can't tell your lure is not running right or fouled up on weeds etc., it's likely your rod is too heavy of an action. The rod tip should tell you what's happening back there.

2) Don't forget to loosen back up on the drag after a fish if you do adjust the drag, I lost a big fish because I failed to do so.

Chris

[Shack]

Rod in hand, bail open and feeling everything on the line with index finger. Feel a bite, let a little line out and set hook. It gets me in trouble at times, but I know whats going on, on my rod.

Alot of great info in last couple of days, I have been deer hunting and just read all of your post's (Almost 3000 others have at this point).

Wobble, wobble, wobble, wobble, wobble and then bam. Set hook.

I was going to tell you all something, but I forgot while reading all these post's. Boy, it was something important.

Ah, I will post it when I remember it.

Good luck!

[rodmaker]

Thats whats nice about using the med light action rods. The softer tip absorbs the hit, and is more forgiving if your drag is set a little tighter than it should be. Also helps when they make a run.makes a huge difference.

[PerchJerker]

I agree with Rodmaker about ML rods, I think they are ideal for running superlines, and they are all you need for those "easy-pulling" cranks that we run for shallow-water fall walleyes.

About the rod in hand or rod in holder question, I usually prefer rod in hand but there are definately times when the fish don't want any surge or drop in the baits and then rod in holder is better. I prefer fishing weedlines, or over weed tops, or in areas of scattered weeds and rocks, and holding the rod is nice in that situation in case you pick up some junk.

During his seminar at Appledorns, Tony Roach said he likes to bang his cranks into rocks and let them dig into the bottom, and he mainly runs his rods in rod holders when he does this.

[MuleShack]

I would like to thank everyone that has posted all this great information. I dont know about the rest of you, but i am a sponge and will soak up as much as i can get!

As a first year "rookie" to the fall trolling thing (yes, i "WAS" one of those guys who basically never took the boat out after August in years past) i came into it thinking that you throw it in the water and if you got the right color on and the fish are near, then they should hit it. Well it certainly is more in depth than that. But i guess it is just like anything else in life, where the more you put into it, the more you get out of it.

The little things are what make the difference between a slow night and a fun night.

I feel like a lot of the information shared on here in the last weeks was awesome, and i cant wait to put it into action.

Again, Thanks to all the Fishing veterans for the tips and tricks to help the rookies succeed. It is appreciated.

Steve

[rodmaker]

That's what makes FM fun!!! Sharing info & tips. If the weather cooperates, look for more posts on the Nov Full Moon.

There is still some awesome fishing to be had, if you don't mind the colder temps. Floating Rapalas come into the picture now. Sizes 13 & 18's