mille lacs Mille Lacs walleyes

[jigginjim]

Has anyone gone out just to do a catch and release of some of the bigger eyes? Maybe trying for the 28" or larger?

[Sculpin]

Can't speak to the overall theory of trying to catch big eyes, but there are allot of fish being caught on the lake right now.  Three of us fished five hours yesterday in what can best be described as terrible post storm conditions, lake was flat, mile high skies, huge barometric swings, etc.

We had ten fish, all deep gravel, 25ft plus, corking a combination of leeches and crawlers, best fish was a 26 inch plus football, the rest varied from 9 to 16 inches.

Many launches are reporting evening catches of 50/75 fish consistently. Very few in the elusive 19/21 range however.  The DNR nailed the size when they made that call.     

[BlackArrow1]

Fished it a couple days ago. Water was very warm. Saw lots of tulibee floating out mid lake. Figured I would just drive and graph to see where fish were holding. Heard lots about getting off the flats to find em. Drove around for about an hour before I started seeing pockets of suspended fish in a region. They were from 24ft all the way to 35ft of water. 10-20 ft down. I had planned to do some live bait rigging and pulling spinners as well. After seeing em suspended I pulled out the lead core rods. Started getting eyes on shad raps. 2 1/2 colors out seemed to work best for me. Standard Suffix lead core not 832 with about a 30 ft leader of 10 pound mono was my presentation. 3 colors was too much when I got on the breaks, digging mud. Brown Craw and Fire Tiger seemed to both work. Craw worked better during the day, Tiger got better later. Saw bigger marks but all I got was small eyes. 9-15 inchers. The fish were inhaling the cranks when the hit. I stayed around the breaks to within a 100yds off the flat. Probably should have gone further out looking but was crunched for daylight and was marking fish. Headed into a rock reef at dusk and bobbered leeches with the same results. No large fish, lots of smalls. That's what I know from my outing. The lead core bite is happening. 

[jigginjim]

What speed are you trolling the lead?  I use 27lb lead core, pulling a #7 shad rap, going about 2mph.

I still end up with 7 to a full 8colors out to reach bottom in 25ft water.  My leader of mono is 20-30 ft long. I'm either still going to fast or need to add something.

[BlackArrow1]

I use 18 pound Suffix lead core. 30 ft mono leader of 10 pound. Trolling speeds I keep from 1.8-2.2mph. 7-8 colors is a lot. I like to figure 5ft down for every color, then your different cranks will do something little different depending on their model. It's kind of tough on the mud dialing in just where your baits are unless you pull em up and the lip has mud/debris on it. This is how I dialed in what my gear was doing..... I got on gravel out on Mille Lacs last fall. I experimented with my set ups letting line out in 24-32 ft. You'll be able to see the cranks start ticking bottom on rod tip. 3 colors was too much in 24 ft with a shad rap. Digging. 2 1/2 colors put me just off bottom there. 3 colors will be good enough for those 30 plus depths. Try a smaller diameter lead core. And ya don't need to put all the colors on the reel for Mille lacs. Segment it for 3 colors and ya should be good. You could do 4 for those 35ft regions but I've never needed 4. The fish I've seen are usually suspended in that 10-25ft down part of the water column. For me it's all experiment until you find what works. I'm no pro at pulling lead core. This is what has worked for me. I hope others chime in to add knowledge to the topic. 

[Sculpin]

There are also tons of published resources available on the subject of pulling cranks  One of the best is the Trollers Crankbait Bible.  The literature out there will tell you exactly how much line you need out when pulling a specific crankbait. I also understand there is now an I phone app available that is loaded with information. All the literature calls out specific baits and how much line and speed it will take to get it to a desired depth. It's inclusive of mono, braid, lead core, etc.  Eliminates lots of wasted time and guesswork on the water.

Good luck.