Hot weather and a hot walleye bite

[eye-tracker]

This is a tip for those that fish Mississippi Lake and have attended my fishing seminars and know how I fish during the month of August... the bite on the lake for summer time eyes is smoke'n.

Trolling at 2.5 to 3 mph with cranks for 3.5 hours yesterday afternoon from 12 noon til' 3:30pm -- went 15 walleye out of 26. (Had to change out the factory bottom trebles with Excalibur's Rotating Hooks because the walleye where smashing the baits and breaking off or straightening out the hooks )

go and get 'em.

-et

[FLOATFISHIN]

Owners

Awsome Sheldon, glad to see ya got into a few!!!

Great tip too.

F.F

[Wall-I-Guy]

Couldn't agree more ET, the Ottawa's as hot as I've seen it....1.3-1.5 MPH for me....Just slayin' 'em

Went out tonight and had 4 'eyes in the first 30 minutes, ended the night with eight total, releasing 4, after all, a man's gotta eat

[Crawler]

Guys,

I want to try Walleye fishing with crank baits but I never know how deep to run the bait in this weather...

crawler

[Rico]

How deep do you run ion this heat?

[eye-tracker]

Guys,

I want to try Walleye fishing with crank baits but I never know how deep to run the bait in this weather...

crawler

Crawler...

Well it all depends on where the fish and bait fish are in reference to the bottom. Use your electronics to mark the depth of the fish or bait fish and then run your crank baits above them.

A good example is fish suspended at 12 ft in 20 feet of water (FOW). Troll with a CC Shad 150 feet back behind the boat with 8lb test and your crank should be approx. 10ft down.

A tip for marking suspended fish is to go over them at about 5-10mph, this way they do not have a chance to move out of the way of the boat. When you are at trolling speeds the walleye will move out to the side of an approaching boat so you will not mark many...I usually look for faint arches as the fish swim out of the sonar cone. You will still mark the bait fish so the walleye will be close bye.

Also if the high fish are not active (in most cases they are in August) you can try the fish relating to bottom structure or under schools of baitfish. For these fish you will want to move to bottom bouncers and lead core to run your baits just off bottom. I like to use lead core line so I can speed up over humps and raise the baits over the structure, then slow down again to get the bait back down to the bottom. This speed style of fishing takes lots of practice and time in the boat.

Here is a recorded snap shot from my sonar when fishing in 20 to 38 feet of water.

What to look for:




Good luck...

-et

[steve-hamilton]

damn...

thanks tracker...

you certainly are a wealth of knowledge.

[fishinfreek]

If I understand right, you run your crankbait off of a boottom bouncer at a trolling sppeed of 2.5-3.5mph?

[eye-tracker]

If I understand right, you run your crankbait off of a boottom bouncer at a trolling sppeed of 2.5-3.5mph?

If I was going after deep bottom holding walleye at different depths along a contour, I would run leadcore and slow my speed down to about 2mph (only because at this speed I know what depth my line and bait will be running at).

Most of the time I power troll at 2.5 mph and up with deep diving cranks...I have a large number of cranks that can run from 5 feet all the way to 40 feet...also you can add snap weights to adjust the dive curve.

I only run bottom bouncers when I want to hug bottom for inactive or coldfront fish...this also calls for a much slower trolling speed 0.9 to 1.3 mph with spinner rigs and live bait. I usually never let the line go past 45 degrees so I can feel every tick of bottom and prevent snags on bottom.

Hope this helps explain some of the details...

-et

[steve-hamilton]

bottom bouncers and spinner rigs are the best summertime walleye tactic, that almost never gets used at Quinte.

(so keep it to yourself. )

[roughrider]

Steve,that very method was the hot ticket opening week this past May. roughrider

[M.T. Livewell]

What to look for:


-et

I recognize that spot!
ET, you've gotta stop giving away all the hot spots in the backgrounds of your pictures.

Thanks again. Think I'm about due for a trip to the Miss.

M.T. Livewell

[fishinfreek]

I'd like to join in the action at Miss Lake if you guys don't mind. Just let me know!

[dana]

Good job E.T.
walleye are
my faves

p.s.

MT[showing background info quote]

that was funny....
but i have
a sense of
humour

the other dana

[Kpin]

Perhaps unrelated but a Q gents...Are bottom bouncers only practical when trolling and when the bite is slow? Or can they be used successfully with drifting or even casting?