June has turned out to be a pretty good month for fishing walleyes on Mille Lacs. The early spring put the fish in a pretty aggressive mood for the month with the fish being somewhat deeper than they normally are this time of year. I usually reserve Sunday afternoon's for my trips as the lake is less crowded and it gives me a chance to get caught up around the house. Along with great fishing we have had excellent rainfall that has keep me busy around the house. I am in the process of replacing all of my landscaping that was put in 18 years ago. Because I still am feeling the effects of my surgery I have some help in the form of 2 excellent gentlemen recommended by my good friend Tom McAtee. Antonio and Jose are brothers and farmers from just north of Mexico City and have been coming to Minnesota for over 15 years to work as landscaping laborers during the summer for a number of nurseries in town. Saturday is their day to make some extra money and half a day on Sunday, they have been a Godsend for me. Together we have removed about 15 tons of rock, removed around 20 mature overgrown shrubs, and have the areas prepared for an all new look! It always seems to be something.
So this Sunday was Lory Brasel's turn in the boat. Heading up around 1:30, our usual stop at Lundeen's gave us some indication of the current bite status. With the wind howling from the west-northwest, there were no shortage of white caps. It was an interesting wind as it was blowing hard enough to create a frothy surface however the size of the waves were not as large as I would have expected. Maybe we were just lucky to be on the right side of the lake and the big rollers were on the south and east side. Our first stop was a set of humps just east of the landing. They have been a good producer however it was starting to get too late in the season to really count on them. Catching nothing we decided to head directly to Sherman's flat, as reports have been good. This meant however that we would be subjecting ourselves to a little more punishment. Starting at the what is known as The Cut, we would fish the top edge of the flat, just where it drops abruptly from 24 feet to 34 feet. This drop runs for almost a mile in a SW to NE direction, perpendicular to the days wind direction. This is a great opportunity to use a technique called quartering. Pulling night crawlers on spinner rigs, the intent is to stay on the top of the break. If you put the motor in reverse, backing into the wind, the physics of it will push the boat almost perfectly at a 90 degree angle to the wind, allowing us to stay on the break. It is pretty neat but unfortunately it did not produce any fish. Getting beat up somewhat we headed to the north side of the flat where there is an edge running exactly parallel to the wind. This would allow us to drift right on the break with minor adjustments. This proved to be a great strategy as we started catching fish immediately. The run was about 1/4 mile long and we were catching 1 - 2 fish every 15 minutes (basically 1 run). The first 4 were over 18 inches and had to go back however in the end we ended up with 5 keeper walleyes and 5 very nice perch in the 12 inch range. I was surprised that we did not get any nice walleyes over 20 inches. I decided not to take any pictures of my fish as I was looking for something large which of course never happened. Well, it never hurts to be a little over confident! The top picture is Lory with his largest, a nice picture for my post.
This weekend is the traditional 4th of July outing with my friend's the Tom's. Hopefully the bite will continue as I have yet to get skunked on the pond this year. I am leaving you with a nice picture of a musky caught my my good friend and former Team Walleyer, Eric Hayes of La Crosse. Eric and his family spend some time on Lost Land Lake, east of Hayward Wisconsin. This year turned out to be a fantastic year for his group as they did very well on the muskies, including this nice on he nailed on Teal Lake, connected to Lost Land. It is great to see my friends send in their trophy pictures as I always say, So many lakes, so little time!
June has turned out to be a pretty good month for fishing walleyes on Mille Lacs. The early spring put the fish in a pretty aggressive mood for the month with the fish being somewhat deeper than they normally are this time of year. I usually reserve Sunday afternoon's for my trips as the lake is less crowded and it gives me a chance to get caught up around the house. Along with great fishing we have had excellent rainfall that has keep me busy around the house. I am in the process of replacing all of my landscaping that was put in 18 years ago. Because I still am feeling the effects of my surgery I have some help in the form of 2 excellent gentlemen recommended by my good friend Tom McAtee. Antonio and Jose are brothers and farmers from just north of Mexico City and have been coming to Minnesota for over 15 years to work as landscaping laborers during the summer for a number of nurseries in town. Saturday is their day to make some extra money and half a day on Sunday, they have been a Godsend for me. Together we have removed about 15 tons of rock, removed around 20 mature overgrown shrubs, and have the areas prepared for an all new look! It always seems to be something.
So this Sunday was Lory Brasel's turn in the boat. Heading up around 1:30, our usual stop at Lundeen's gave us some indication of the current bite status. With the wind howling from the west-northwest, there were no shortage of white caps. It was an interesting wind as it was blowing hard enough to create a frothy surface however the size of the waves were not as large as I would have expected. Maybe we were just lucky to be on the right side of the lake and the big rollers were on the south and east side. Our first stop was a set of humps just east of the landing. They have been a good producer however it was starting to get too late in the season to really count on them. Catching nothing we decided to head directly to Sherman's flat, as reports have been good. This meant however that we would be subjecting ourselves to a little more punishment. Starting at the what is known as The Cut, we would fish the top edge of the flat, just where it drops abruptly from 24 feet to 34 feet. This drop runs for almost a mile in a SW to NE direction, perpendicular to the days wind direction. This is a great opportunity to use a technique called quartering. Pulling night crawlers on spinner rigs, the intent is to stay on the top of the break. If you put the motor in reverse, backing into the wind, the physics of it will push the boat almost perfectly at a 90 degree angle to the wind, allowing us to stay on the break. It is pretty neat but unfortunately it did not produce any fish. Getting beat up somewhat we headed to the north side of the flat where there is an edge running exactly parallel to the wind. This would allow us to drift right on the break with minor adjustments. This proved to be a great strategy as we started catching fish immediately. The run was about 1/4 mile long and we were catching 1 - 2 fish every 15 minutes (basically 1 run). The first 4 were over 18 inches and had to go back however in the end we ended up with 5 keeper walleyes and 5 very nice perch in the 12 inch range. I was surprised that we did not get any nice walleyes over 20 inches. I decided not to take any pictures of my fish as I was looking for something large which of course never happened. Well, it never hurts to be a little over confident! The top picture is Lory with his largest, a nice picture for my post. 
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