Line is also a factor in successful speed-trolling.

“With the advent of the superlines you can troll fast with a light-diameter line and still have the strength,” said Melstrom. “The line I use is a 60-pound-test line with a 14-pound diameter. This means the lures will run deep and true. The lures will also run deeper without as much line out, and this is great if you’re trying to stay on a contour line. If you put a lure out 150 feet behind the boat, you can be trolling the boat along an erratic depth contour and the lure is just running in a straight line. The lure doesn’t follow any of the turns your boat is making because it’s just too far out there. If you can keep the lure in deep water near the boat you can keep that bait on the contour and in the zone where the fish are. Keeping that lure close to the boat means you can trace out every little finger or you can stay glued to that erratic weedline. It’s a great advantage to the angler to be able to do that.”

Since Melstrom has been living in the Lake Minnetonka area for the past 20 years and opened his shop between Minnetonka and Excelsior on Highway 7, you would expect that one of his favorite pike lakes is, what else, but Lake Minnetonka.

LAKE MINNETONKA

“I usually start out by getting up on top the milfoil and casting over the tops of the weedbeds,” Melstrom instructed, “and I like to use a No. 5 Mepps in-line spinner for this or a lighter spinnerbait, maybe a 1-ouncer. You don’t want to be catching all those 1 1/2-pound bass and 2-pound pike up there, so use a lure that has a larger profile.”

If the pike are in the shallower water, Melstrom will stick with his game plan. Should he find that the pattern calls for a deeper approach, then he’ll move.

“I move out to the weedline and get out the spinnerbaits and work them deep, on the base of the vegetation in 18 to 20 feet of water,” he said.

“I won’t jig the weedline like some anglers do,” said Melstrom. “I save jigging for the tips of points, the deep rockpiles and humps. I also pick weedlines that have something extra, like a point, an inside turn or deep water nearby. I want something that’s structurally interesting, not just a 1/4-mile long, straight stretch of weedline. The erratic nature of a weedline attracts better fish.”

As most anglers are aware, Minnetonka does have its fair share of boaters.

“It’s a highly recreational lake,” said Melstrom. “I’ve learned that to catch big pike there you have to take what most anglers see as a disadvantage and turn it into an advantage. I’ve discovered patterns that only work when the boat traffic is at its peak.

“On a lake like Minnetonka, where you have a series of channels that connect lakes, the boat traffic creates something that isn’t normally there,” said Melstrom. “That’s current. There’s always a slight amount of current moving from one basin to another, but nothing like you have when you have a lot of boats moving through these necked-down areas.

“When these boats are cutting through the shallow milfoil, it causes a lot of confusion with the baitfish, and there’s the tendency for the forage to stack up on the weedline. The predator fish have become accustomed to having their buffet table set up for them when the traffic picks up,” continued Melstrom. “This is when that 15- to 18-foot depth on the edge of that weedline becomes productive, right on the edge of that busy channel. The pike don’t seem to have a problem with those props going over their heads all day long as long as there’s some forage available there. To these fish, it’s no different than living right next to the airport. They’ve adapted to the noise. It’s amazing how many 8- to 10-pound pike I’ve pulled from right under a big weekend cruiser coming through the channel.”