When it takes more than 27 pounds of largemouth to win a small local derby, you know the lake is something special. YouTuber Milliken found that out the hard way, fishing solo against two-man teams on a northern fishery he hadn't touched in years and still coming up just short.
His day was a procession. Picking apart shallow bedding water, he caught every keeper on a single lure — a 6th Sense Cloud stick worm, fished weightless and wacky in natural colours. The bag built quickly through five- and four-pound fish and topped out with a 6-pound-7-ounce tank, leaving him around 24 pounds by mid-morning. The pike were relentless: "Doesn't matter if it's a rock pile, in the grass, a stick, a laydown, I'm catching pike out of it," he said, and he even landed a big walleye on the same bait.
The surprise came at the scales. A local team weighed 27-and-change, their big fish beating his by an ounce at 6-pound-8, and roughly half a dozen anglers cracked 23 pounds — remarkable depth for a northern lake. Milliken took it on the chin. "Those guys brought it and I was crazy impressed," he said. "The fisheries, they're in good shape."
What stuck with him was the lure. In an age of forward-facing sonar and gimmick baits, an entire stacked field leaned on the most basic stick worm in the box — him included. "I enjoy fishing the local eight-to-20-boat tournaments more than the Elite Series," admitted the angler, who has fished at the highest level, and a lake this good full of locals who could match him made the reason obvious.