Trolling Small for Early Walleyes
Trolling for early season walleyes is nothing new, particularly if you
are talking Great Lakes or other “open water” scenarios. But when it
comes to shallow structure on both natural lakes and reservoirs,
trolling is not normally the first tactic that comes to mind. However,
trolling can be the best way to target and trigger the most fish given
the right circumstances. But while this kind of trolling has its
similarities to the “Great Lakes” style trolling, there are some major
differences you need to learn in order to get in on this bite!
Over the past couple seasons we have run into a few situations where
this pattern absolutely dominated. One was in early June last year on
the AIM tournament trail on the St. Mary’s River near Brimley, MI where
we trolled the new 4 cm sized Berkley Flicker Shads in 3 to 4 feet of
water along rock-to-muck transitions. The walleyes were keying on small
baitfish, so running the baits back 50 to 60 feet on long rods kept the
Flicker Shads just off the bottom and proved deadly on these early
season fish. Those same little 4cm Flicker Shads also made a big
impression when we took this tactic to the St. Louis River near Duluth,
MN to shoot a TV show for The Next Bite with our good buddy and
top-notch guide Jim Hudson of Ashland, WI. We originally went there to
fish the “Big Water” for trophy walleyes, but ended up hammering lots
and lots of nice fish in some shallow bays just inside the St. Louis
River – all on the 4cm Flicker Shads. A good rod set-up would be to use ten foot trolling rods, like the Bass Pro Shops Walleye Angler model WA10T-2, and run those sticking straight out from the gunnels as the outside rods, then run shorter eight foot trolling rods angled towards the back of the boat as the inside rods. In the scenarios mentioned above, we were usually targeting fish in 3 to 5 feet of water so running the cranks 50 to 60 feet back was all that was needed to put them in the strike zone.
You can run this kind of trolling pattern using a small kicker motor
like the Mercury 9.9 4-stroke Pro-Kickers we run, or what can often be
even more effective is to use your bowmount trolling motor to pull
things along. Typical trolling speed for this pattern is about 2 mph,
and in most conditions the bowmount will have no problem doing that.
Plus it gives you the added advantage of a more quiet approach and
increased maneuverability, especially if you need to turn on a snag or
to avoid any shallow water obstacles like large stumps, rocks, etc.
While we have seen this pattern primarily on waters connected to the
Great Lakes, we are sure that with some experimentation and serious
froggin’ around, more about this shallow trolling pattern will reveal
itself in the future. Bottom line is there are lots of walleyes using
shallow water areas that in the past were going virtually untouched.
With trolling tactics like this however, it won’t be long before you’ll
be trolling up your Next Bite. Get North - Ontario Fishing Vacations |