I had asked for some help for last Sat when my nephew and I were headed to Mille Lacs last Friday (17th). We ended up going out of Lybacks (thanks Will) and out to the Graveyard reef. We used our lake maps to get to the edge of the reef and drilled lots of holes. We set up the hub house on the top of the rock reef at 11′ and then I moved around with my portable to drill and fish holes all the way to the bottom of the drop off at 22′. I found all the 5 ‘ perch I could catch in the deep water but nothing of any size. The plan was to fish the deeper water until the sun was going down and then follow the walleye up the reef to the hub house. Nephew went to the hub about 3 and put a minnow down and got hit hard. He actually called me to come help him out. it turned out to be a HUGE northern. Of course it was on his smallest pole. He did great fighting it and we saw it under the hole many times. We were stumped about how to get this monster up the hole. After about 20 mins. we knew we had to do something. I took off my coat and pulled up my sleeve ready to go in after it, but I did not think I would be able to get my hand over its head, let alone under the jaw. Of course we could not even get its head to start up the hole. Long story cut short. We ended up breaking the line trying to get its head started up the hole.
At 6:30 we had not seen any walleye action so we started to pull up. When I moved my bobber rod with a minnow on it – BAM. I had something big on now. I fought it for awhile but it did not feel like a northern. My nephew had on his headlight and looked down the hole to see those glowing eyes. I pulled up my PB walleye at just under 28″. Sure is a skinny one though. So… slow fishing for most the day but his biggest fish ever, and my biggest walleye, not bad
