Great Lakes Walleye 101

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Dewey
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Re: Great Lakes Walleye 101

Unread postby Dewey » Wed Jun 10, 2015 3:50 pm

Thanks for the tips guys. Think I'm gonna mount the 4 like I mentioned for now as soon as I get them. 2 more can easily be added in between them later if I feel the need. Thanks SB with the tip about the rod holder location interfering with the seats. I can see how that could easily be mis-judged. You might have saved me some headaches and extra drilled holes. 8-)

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Re: Great Lakes Walleye 101

Unread postby Dewey » Fri Jun 19, 2015 6:20 am

Easy do it yourself Tattle Flags for Off Shore planer boards.

[bbvideo=425,350]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiXs9cjH3ts[/bbvideo]



[bbvideo=425,350]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGfBHJGKCcY[/bbvideo]
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Re: Great Lakes Walleye 101

Unread postby Singing Bridge » Fri Jun 19, 2015 1:43 pm

Good stuff Dewey- I always use these types of retractable flags on my boards when using crawler harnesses, early season or not. They will triple your catch rate over boards that do not function that way.

There are very few, and I mean very few people who can read a board well enough to not miss strikes without them. When they are fine tuned you can actually read a walleye nibbling on your crawler. That gives you an opportunity to grab the rod and force feed him. 8-)
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Re: Great Lakes Walleye 101

Unread postby Singing Bridge » Fri Jun 19, 2015 1:46 pm

I am going to frontload more of my additions to the original post at the start of this thread so that more information is available at the beginning. 8-)
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Re: Great Lakes Walleye 101

Unread postby Dewey » Fri Jun 19, 2015 5:27 pm

My first test run last weekend with my new planer boards taught me how hard they are to read. I caught walleye by watching my rod tip more than anything to detect a hit. I can see that the Tattle Flags could be very valuable especially for detecting small fish or even a bait fowled by weeds.

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Re: Great Lakes Walleye 101

Unread postby bigwoodsmn » Sat Jun 20, 2015 1:43 pm

I take my eye off HB for a minute and it's all walleyes over here! That's all I've been up to lately...

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Re: Great Lakes Walleye 101

Unread postby Singing Bridge » Sun Jun 21, 2015 2:16 pm

bigwoodsmn wrote:I take my eye off HB for a minute and it's all walleyes over here! That's all I've been up to lately...

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Get some pics up big woods! We wanna see 'em!

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Re: Great Lakes Walleye 101

Unread postby bigwoodsmn » Thu Jun 25, 2015 6:32 pm

It's been a great start to 2015. I haven't been on the Great Lakes but I've been on some great walleye waters. I've been wearing off the trailer tires and dragging friends and family all over.

Mississippi River in the spring we caught a bunch.
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Here are 4 in the 25"-26" range I caught/released in March. B-Fishn Moxy's and B-Fishn paddle tails.
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I upgraded electronics this year. I stripped out my old Gen I Lowrance HDS units and sold them on Ebay and replaced with a single Gen III Lowrance HDS 9" with CHIRP sonar and side imaging and structure scan. I had a couple Gen 1s mounted before. This one is so much clearer and faster. The touch screen is great. Also, Lowrance added the menu buttons back to the unit so you can work it with gloves on. Gen II didn't have the buttons which they got some flack about.

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SB - I was thinking about what you said with regard to using the trolling motor more (I troll leadcore quite a bit in July/August) and I was getting some feedback/static in my sonar when I'd run the trolling motor. It was really irritating. It was hard to read the marks and I had to rely on my structure scan which isn't as ideal for marks up in the water column. I finally figured it out. When the trolling motor is running it is sending noise through the 3 bank battery charger over to the cell that runs my electronics. When I disconnect it from the charger... it works perfect. I'll be trolling with my trolling motor more now. Your comment about that got under my skin because I knew you were right about using the trolling motor more. I thought maybe the wires needed to be shielded better, or something. Anyway I figured it out and now the walleyes are kind of screwed ;) or something.

New batteries. Not the expensive gel cells but they are working great.

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Fished MN "opener" on Whiteface Reservior in MN -- hadn't fished there before. We caught crappies but I didn't take any pics of them. Water was down 4ft.
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My cousin from FL flew up and we fished Leech Lake and Rainy Lake. He boated this 26" -- I didn't ask but I'm certain it's his biggest walleye. He catches a lot of big fish in the ocean but he's originally from MN so it was kind of a big deal to catch a nice walleye. Doesn't get to do it much. He's the one that flew up a couple years ago to deer hunt. He stayed patient and shot a nice 8pt buck.

Leech Lake, MN - June - Released
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Rainy Lake, MN - June
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Rainy Lake, MN - June
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Took a 4 day trip to Devil's Lake, ND... We caught a bunch of eater walleyes and we brought 30 of those home. Caught some really nice northerns too. I brought some back some pike to pickle. Here's a 40" pike my pheasant hunting buddy Jon caught. Said it was his biggest fish ever. I love when that happens in my boat.
Devil's Lake, ND - June - Released
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The bite is on fire on my favorite lake Mille Lacs. Everyone hates Mille Lacs now except me. It's supposedly at a 40 year low for walleyes and you can only keep one fish 19" to 21" but I don't care. They are popping if you can find them. And it's easy to find them with good electronics. We slip bobber with the big motor running or trolling motor "power corking." If there's wind, I drift through schools with the drift sock deployed... using a Lindy Rig or pulling Slow Death rigs. I will start running leadcore in the next couple weeks. Depends if the fish start suspending more.

Here's the only pic of my boat. It's a 19.5 deep V -- high gunwales. Kids like that. I take it in big waves all the time. It was all decked out with downriggers, a mast for the boards, etc. etc. when I bought it. ... I bought it off a guy that only trolled on the Great Lakes. I stripped all that stuff off. For walleyes, I prefer leadcore. It presents more naturally if your speed control isn't perfect. The leadcore has no stretch so I put on 10 yards of of cheap 10 pound "XT" mono to get better hookups.
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24" corking active fish in flat calm and staying on them with the trolling motor and spot lock
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25.5" lindy rig - bottom bouncer, braided line, 7ft fluro leader and a small hook with leech.
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20" Smallie (it's a world class smallmouth fishery) -- swimming a white Moxy.
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Here's a buddy with like a 16-17" smallie - one of his biggest he said.
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Boat traffic is down 70% on Mille Lacs
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I'm running to Mille Lacs this weekend probably. I'll power cork (I know that sounds stupid, but that's what it's called here) if it's calm or run live bait rigs (lindy or slow death) and maybe some spinners/blades. I will bring the leadcore rods and Salmo Hornets and SR5, JSR5, Scatter Raps, and Smash Shads. I'm sure I'll do some trolling if I find them suspended in open water off the sides of mud flats.

This is power corking and it is a great way to pluck fish feeding in bug hatches as well as how Jon Thielen is doing it with active fish just off bottom. I caught a bunch last weekend doing this. Until the wind picked back up and then we went live bait rigging again.
[bbvideo=425,350]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9jMcOpiS8g[/bbvideo]

Here's my little guy at 9 months. His sister did that to his hair.
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Threw in this pic I ran across online... for good measure. :D
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Re: Great Lakes Walleye 101

Unread postby Singing Bridge » Wed Jul 01, 2015 4:42 am

Great pics, Bigwoods! You've been on some quality walleye waters indeed. The best pic is the future walleye fisherman you've got there. 8-)

Glad to hear you figured out the interference problem with the electric. That motor can make a big difference in a lot of situations. For example, right now I'm trolling spoons at about 2.5 mph. I do this by starting with my electric... I take the boat up over 1 mph and turn the autopilot on to troll the direction I want to go. With the kicker on the back of the boat, I then take my boat speed (SOG, speed over ground) up to 2.5 mph. I lock the throttle speed and lock the kicker motor from turning when I have reached my target speed.

The biggest thing the bowmount electric did was make me hands-free for fishing. Even at this higher trolling speed, it keeps the boat going in the direction I need it to go. I can walk around, mess with lines, net fish, change tackle, whatever... being hands-free is invaluable to me.

Nice boat btw, that will definitely get the job done. Cool vid on power corking too, I'm sending it to some friends on big lakes. Keep the pics coming! 8-)
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Re: Great Lakes Walleye 101

Unread postby Singing Bridge » Wed Jul 01, 2015 7:21 am

I combined some of my posts and put them at the start of this thread for easier reading by beast members. Hopefully some searchers find that useful.
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Re: Great Lakes Walleye 101

Unread postby Dewey » Sat Jul 04, 2015 6:36 pm

Finally got out today to test out my new trolling gear on Winnebago, been sidetracked the last few weeks with musky. Everything worked out flawlessly thanks to all of the tips I picked up in this thread. 8-) Got a mixed bag of walleye, crappie and of course a few sheepshead mixed in today. I installed Tattle Flags on my boards and they are great for noticing smaller fish or even weeds saving some wasted trolling time with a fouled bait. My new Cabela's Depthmaster rod combo's with line counters work great for getting back to a consistant depth's repeatedly. The magic speed for me seemed to be 1.8-2.0 mph which is the slowest my 4-stroke runs. In the future I want to upgrade to a 24 volt set up trolling motor to get a little stealthier with an electric motor in shallow water. Right now my 12 volt 55 lb thrust just doesn't cut it for long periods of trolling, to reach 2 mph I have to run wide open and it kills the deep cycle battery very quickly

Had some fun learning a new tactic and can't wait to apply it to my musky fishing now that trolling is legal statewide as of July 1.
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Re: Great Lakes Walleye 101

Unread postby oldrank » Sun Jul 05, 2015 5:49 am

Here are a few smallies and walleye we got from shore off Lake Huron. We had a north east wind muddy the water up real bad.. The next morning it swiths back to south west and pushed it out... the fish went crazy. All were caught from noon to about 4.


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Re: Great Lakes Walleye 101

Unread postby bigwoodsmn » Sun Jul 05, 2015 12:19 pm

Dewey wrote:Finally got out today to test out my new trolling gear on Winnebago, been sidetracked the last few weeks with musky. Everything worked out flawlessly thanks to all of the tips I picked up in this thread. 8-) Got a mixed bag of walleye, crappie and of course a few sheepshead mixed in today. I installed Tattle Flags on my boards and they are great for noticing smaller fish or even weeds saving some wasted trolling time with a fouled bait. My new Cabela's Depthmaster rod combo's with line counters work great for getting back to a consistant depth's repeatedly. The magic speed for me seemed to be 1.8-2.0 mph which is the slowest my 4-stroke runs. In the future I want to upgrade to a 24 volt set up trolling motor to get a little stealthier with an electric motor in shallow water. Right now my 12 volt 55 lb thrust just doesn't cut it for long periods of trolling, to reach 2 mph I have to run wide open and it kills the deep cycle battery very quickly

Had some fun learning a new tactic and can't wait to apply it to my musky fishing now that trolling is legal statewide as of July 1.


Could you connect two deep cycle batteries in 12v parallel (not 24v series) and keep the 55lb running twice as long?

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Re: Great Lakes Walleye 101

Unread postby Dewey » Sun Jul 05, 2015 1:35 pm

bigwoodsmn wrote:
Dewey wrote:Finally got out today to test out my new trolling gear on Winnebago, been sidetracked the last few weeks with musky. Everything worked out flawlessly thanks to all of the tips I picked up in this thread. 8-) Got a mixed bag of walleye, crappie and of course a few sheepshead mixed in today. I installed Tattle Flags on my boards and they are great for noticing smaller fish or even weeds saving some wasted trolling time with a fouled bait. My new Cabela's Depthmaster rod combo's with line counters work great for getting back to a consistant depth's repeatedly. The magic speed for me seemed to be 1.8-2.0 mph which is the slowest my 4-stroke runs. In the future I want to upgrade to a 24 volt set up trolling motor to get a little stealthier with an electric motor in shallow water. Right now my 12 volt 55 lb thrust just doesn't cut it for long periods of trolling, to reach 2 mph I have to run wide open and it kills the deep cycle battery very quickly

Had some fun learning a new tactic and can't wait to apply it to my musky fishing now that trolling is legal statewide as of July 1.


Could you connect two deep cycle batteries in 12v parallel (not 24v series) and keep the 55lb running twice as long?

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That's an option I am considering for now since my trolling motor is only a few years old. With 2 batteries I figure I would get 5-6 hours wide open. Maybe a better deep cycle battery may be an option as well. Seems like the one I'm using dies fairly quickly for only bring a few years old. My boat, motor, gear and me on board are probably about 1500 lbs. If I had to do it again I would get a bigger trolling motor right away. Rather have too much than be under powered.
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Re: Great Lakes Walleye 101

Unread postby gjs4 » Mon Jul 06, 2015 1:00 am

My brother is the FishingBeast (not great with deer though; lol) here in Buffalo/Rochester NY. Last yr we had a night when four of us limited out and had 3 over 10lbs. He is a sloppy guy with many things but depth, thermocline and speed of the boat/lure matter exponentially. They play games with colors and scents - even wire vs lead core... But consistently look like heroes compare to most at the docks. I've drifted, jiggled and tried some other tactics with him- it always reverts back to trolling due to proficiency/success. They play the same game on Ontario for salmon and trout. Deposited having a lifetime license, I fish twice a year- once to fill the freezer with eyes the next to cast for musky on the niagara river aka get away from the summer stresses at home.

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Green and growing... Or red and rotting


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