Hardcore Mille Lacs Muskies....

As I sit down to tell this story, I am almost too sore to even type on the computer.  Yesterday Musky Mike and I hit up the big pond for the famous Fall Fatty's that I crave.  Looking at the picture, you would say that we accomplished our goal, and yes, we kinda did.  However, we were in search of the elusive 50 pounder on this particular day.  It was basically the most hardcore fishing that you can put your body through.  Rewarding???? Yes! But, Very abusive to the body.  We started chucking baits by daybreak and didn't stop until after dark.  When you head to fish for that next state record, you cannot expect to see fish everywhere and catch several,  so we put our time in and made cast after cast all day long with high hopes of that fat bellied beast with each toss of the baits.  The other factor was that the wind was blowing sooooo hard all day and we had rollers crashing over the front of the boat from start to finish.  When you couple that with 48 - 50 degree air temps, you have to call us crazy for even trying.  It was just plain horrible conditions, and we loved every second of it!!!!

This trip had the feel that we were going to catch not just a musky, but some ungodly huge beast that doesn't even exist.  I don't know quite how to say it, but it felt like I was going to be holding the next state record at any given cast.  And rightfully so, because there really may not be a better chance to catch such a fish than right now, and on that lake.  It kinda kept the jump in our step all day, and as we had fish come and go throughout the day, we finally had that encounter with "The Beast."  That's right, we saw the fish that we spent 10 hours casting for.  A monster that could possibly force a scale to show 50+.  Needless to say, we stuck around and spent another two hours trying to make him eat.  The fish was just HUGE!  We didn't know exactly what we were dealing with when we saw him, all we knew was that it was a tank, and if it gets caught, it will probably be flying around websites across the country.  So, hoping we would catch this fish, we tried into the darkness and that is where the picture comes from.  A very healthy and fat 47.5 inch fish.  Judging from the belly on him, he has been eating very well.  It was not the 50 pounder we were looking for, but still an awesome fish that is sure to top out around 30 pounds.  It came on the last pass of the night, and it couldn't have been any sweeter.  I will remember the cold, the waves, the rain, the wind, the waves again, the sore back and arms, the 47.5 incher that we landed, and the state record that still swims on that sweet sweet honey hole of ours.  Thanks Mike, It was the best butt whooping I've had in a long time! 

Mille Lacs.....Oh Lord....And Jacks Largest Yet!

This Morning Jack and His son Tom jumped in the boat for some fun.  This is Jack's 3rd season of fishing with me, and while he has caught a couple of nice ones in the past, this morning he caught his largest yet at 46 inches.  This was far from the only chance we had today, and as we kept track it got confusing towards the end.  Jack and Tom will be joining me for two more mornings this week, so hopefully the totals keep increasing and Jack hauls in an even larger one for us to take a picture with.  The tally for today is somewhere around 15 sightings, and 1 in the boat.  A great time for the ski's, but we're hoping to up the average the next couple times out.  As you can see from this picture, Jack had his video camera with, so hopefully the movies will continue to be made.  Eventually I'll get them on here for everybody to see, but I still can't quite figure it out.  Although he obviously didn't tape his own battle, there were quite a few laughs after the net had been placed in the water, and should be a good one to watch.  Thanks boys, see ya soon!

Loge, Kemke and Myself spent Saturday evening and Sunday morning up on the big pond (Mille Lacs).  Our quest was simple, have a great time, relax and catch a 60 pounder.  Well, we did have a great time, the weather made it nearly impossible to relax, and we didn't catch a 60 pounder.  All in all, the great time made the trip worth it.  Friday night we chased the ski's around from dark until about 3:00 AM.  Around 10:00 we really got ourselves into a pod of them, and some giants at that.  It was kinda funny cuz Kemke heard the explosion of one, and honestly wanted nothing to do with it.  Loge and I just laughed.  Loge hooked up shortly after we started seeing the giants, and the beast of a ski found its way into the air and shook the hooks.  Arghhh the Mille Lacs Ski's can be elusive.  He claims he caught it, but obviously he didn't.  We spent the rest of the night laughing at having a good time with the rats nests that they kept getting into.  Like a couple of first timers on the water.   Sunday morning greeted us with 30 mph winds making fishing impossible and breaking my trolling motor in the process.  It was a frustrating couple of hours of battling the totally unnecessary waves,  Why do they have to get that big anyway???  Anybody have an extra trolling motor to spare???  We did catch a couple of Willies before we left which kept the boat from leaving with the skunk still in it.  A fun time, with many laughs, and curse words.  Oh Well, I guess that's what happens when you live the dream!

The Adventures of Guru and Bob....

Yesterday I was the fortunate soul to spend the day on Mille Lacs with two awesome fisherman named Guru and Bob.  As you can see from the picture, our quest to get this Kentucky born man a few walleyes was well accomplished.  He is holding one of the doubles that we had with both walleyes being in the 26-27 inch range.  In fact that was the very large majority of our catch for the day.  We probably caught over 20 walleyes throughout our day on the water that were over the 25 inch mark.  I think our average had to be 26 inches, but we failed to top the 28 inch mark.  A few times we thought we had done it, but 27 and 3/4 was all we could get.  Absolutely insane when you look at August and think about fishing for walleyes.  It just isn't suppose to be that way....or is it.  The pattern that we used was simply the same pattern that I found while on a muskie fishing trip with my fishin buddy Dusty about 7 years back.  It's crazy, but the hotter it gets, the bigger the fish seem to be and larger the schools.  Simply great walleye fishing wherever you go.   

I would say that it was a relaxing time of catching very above average walleyes, but it was far from it.  There was not one single point during that outing that the 3 of us felt that we could comfortably stand up without being thrown out of the boat.  The wind yet again was howling with force.  The only difference this time was that we put all sanity behind us and went to where the fish were anyway.  I managed to get my spike stuck in a large enough boulder and let out enough rope that the boat was able to ride over the 4 - 5 - 6 - whatever size those giant waves were, and keep us over the right spot.  Anchoring was the only option this time, because there was no chance of keeping us in position with the trolling motor.  The schools are definitely in certain spots that are typically no more than 15 - 20 feet large.  And for those of you who know about the "love Rock," yes it was kicking them out again, only now the name might just be called "BobRock!"  Once Bob got dialed in on the sunken giant boulder, there was no stopping him.

It was funny because Bob braced himself up against the back seat and didn't move from his position the entire time.  He simply would set the hook, battle his fish from his perch, I would net it, unhook it, release it, hand him a leech, and he would do it all over again.  This sounds like a lot of work, but it couldn't have been any more enjoyable, or done any other way.  We could have taken several nice photos, but it just wasn't worth keeping the fish out of the water that long and risking going overboard.  Unfortunately the wind meant that Guru would be doing more watching than fishing, due to his current hip situation, but he still claims that he was having more fun watching us monkeys run around the boat catching fish than he would have if he were fishing.  We were kinda limited to moving from spot to spot, and only fished two Willie holes and one Smallie spot for the day.  Granted, they were my two favorite spots, and the action was continuous.  We caught two Smallies that were both respectable fish, and called it a great day just after lunch time.

As you can see from some of the pictures we took, the waves were quite intense!  It is really hard to capture this wave action on still photos, but these are a couple of the examples.  They sure don't grow them like that around the cities!

Update on 2007-08-03 17:12 by Travis Frank

I am waiting on more pictures to show up for this beastly 54 incher from this mornings guide trip.  You just have to check back soon to see the monster from this morning!  Until then, here is a taste!

Reliving A Dream...

I recently received more pictures of a trip that Steve, Adam and myself took up to Mille Lacs a couple of weeks back.  I just thought I would kinda relive the dream so to speak and post more pictures of our catches that I didn't already show.  Once again, our main catch during our trip was the fabulous Smallies, and I hope to be having similar results when I head back up there today. 

Originally we planned to be fishing today, but since we left room in our schedules to play the weather and the wind, we chose to pick Thursday as our day of attacking.  I will be up there with Guru and Bob on what hopes to provide several walleyes and smallies, and as I talk to Guru more, it sounds like we may be spending some time chasing my beloved friends (ol' Snaggle Tooth).  I will report back when my time on Mille Lacs is through, so until then, we'll just have to look back and relive the past experience up there. 

I especially like the shot of the sun almost rising, and the two guys that look like they are trying to pick a fight with the camera man (heehee).  That's the attitude I love to see, Look out fish these guys are coming for you!  Also included is a shot of a giant walleye that Steve landed on his recent trip to Canada.  He said that they weren't all that small, and they landed some whoppers in the 28 inch area while they were up there.  Sometimes you have to weed through the large ones to get to the small ones, or something like that!

The Canadien Whopper!

Keep on Livin the Dream Fellas!

What a Fishery! What a Day!

Sometimes things just come together!  This past Friday Keane and myself hit up the big pond again for my second time of the week.  We had the same game plan in mind as I had a couple of days earlier, only this time we were able to follow through with our plan.  We hit the water by 4:45 and had every intention of landing some Muskies.  The only problem was that the 44 degree air temps that we arrived to just made the muskies jaws lock up.  As the sun rose higher, they came out from all depths and sat on the calm surface to soak up all the possible sun.  We only had 3 legitimate follows in our first 3 hours of casting, and we saw at least 15 others that were just laying logs on the surface.  When this happens on that lake, it truly means that it could be a long day.  Our mistake on this outing was the fact that we weren't casting our baits in the middle of the full moon light at night.  These fish were apparently eating so heavily throughout the middle of the night with the full moon, that they turned extremely mellow during daylight hours.  If given the opportunity, we would have done this night fishing, but it will have to wait for the next trip.  I will however give a "shout out" to my good buddy Muskie Mike who was able to capitalize on this Midnight bite over the last couple of nights of landing fish in the complete darkness. 

With the conditions turning sour on the Muskies, and the wind laying down low, we were able to turn our tactics to the other great fish in this lake and make it one of those days that will always be remembered in our minds.  One of the great things about Mille Lacs for me is that I have a couple of spots on this lake that when the conditions are crappy for Muskies, I can go and catch huge smallies and walleyes.  The best part about it, is that I sight fish the giants! Yes that's right, I have a couple of locations where I know they move shallow enough to see the large schools of white tips (walleyes) and the blacker than night jumbo football smallies.  It is probably the coolest fishing that I know of, and what makes it even better, is that all the fish in these spots are huge.  I am serious when I say that the average size of the walleyes that we catch there are over 25 inches.  The smallies aren't too shabby themselves, and 19 and 20 inchers are quite common.  On this particular day, we landed 4 walleyes over 28 inches, with our largest topping out very close to 29.  I'm not sure how many we landed in total, but it was absolutely non-stop action with the Smallies and Eyes.  The average size walleye for the day would have to be at 26 inches.  In fact, we only had 3 fish that we thought would be under 20 inches, and when we measured them, we had to chuckle because they would be 22 or 23 inches.  What a tough problem to deal with.  The smallies were slammin as well, and we topped 19 inches several times with numerous doubles.  We could have taken hundreds of photos, but I think you get the point from the few that I will show.  What a great day to be on the water.  Even though we didn't catch any muskies, when you land that many trophy caliber fish in one day, you have to just sit back and enjoy every single battle.  It truly is one of those amazing sites to be seen, and I am fortunate yet again to watch my years of searching on that lake to pay off as well as they did.  Thanks Keane!  Until next time fellas, Keep on Livin the Dream!