Crankbaits on the river

[Craigums]

3 part question:

-What types of crankbaits do you walleye guys use when fishing the river?

-Do you guys cast and reel or troll?

-If you guys primarily troll do you just use the crankbait itself to acheive depth or do you use 3-ways and weights?

[JohnMickish]

For me on pool 3 and 4 my answers are

1) Berkely Flicker Shads 90% of the time. They run great and are half the price of a Shad Rap. #7 Rapala floater will get the nod in cold weather when the water temps are down. I do use others but that gets the bulk of my use.

2) Troll. If I'm casting it's going to be jigs and plastic.

3) Leadcore 90% of the time. 3 ways will get the nod alot of the times if I am using a stick bait to keep it right on the bottom when the fish are slow (cold water temps).

[Mike Walerak]

Assuming you mean the Mississippi River I pretty much do all of the above. The possilities are endless. I can tell you that most of my river trolling is done with a Denver Rig. That is a 3-way swivel a jighead/paddletail on a 12" leader and a 5 foot leader to some sort of crankbait. I have these rigs pretied and add them to leadcore or hardline.

3-ways and sticks are a go to in cold water as wells as trolling the faces and tips of wingdams. I keep two 3 way rods in my boat 12 months a year. Not always to troll sticks but sometimes I throw down a spinner and crawler.

All river rats know the term "There always dead with lead" Anytime you want to make you lure run deeper than it would otherwise on its own. In the river I might run lead in 8 FOW to keep my lures running close to the boat while fishing in tight quarters. I might also run a #5 shadrap in 25 FOW. Pretty much carry leadcore in the boat all the time and think of it as my crutch. Sometimes I go to it too early and too often but it usualy produces.

Theres always longlining. Anytime you are fishing 10 fow or less.

Casting: My longest (a 30.25"er) river eye came off a #5 shadrap casted to a 3 foot deep riprap shorline. It can produce some dandy fish from time to time. Also, I will not leave a wingdam without making a half dozen casts to to make sure I'm not leaving an active fish behind.

As far as baits anything that resembles a shad. Lindy shadlings, Shadraps and flickers are all staples in my summertime tacklebox. Sometimes you can add wally divers to the list.

Colors: Firetiger is always good as are oranges, blues and purples.

For the most part you just have to go out and figure how you can fish a crank most effectivly and go from there. After time you will be so confident in them you won't be bringing bait every time.

mw

[Craigums]

I was referring to Pool 2. Im a bass fisherman so I never use live bait, mostly because im lazy and don't like messing with it. I was curious because I was out on P2 yesterday with my dad and I picked up a decent walleye off a wing dam casting a DT10 (report in the mississippi forum). I feel like I could get my dad to come out more frequently if I could get him into some walters. Guess Im more of a walleye newbie than I thought.....Im embarassed to say I don't even know what lead core is.

[Mike Walerak]

DT's are great for fishing the faces of wingdams. As are Bandits,Bombers and Fat Free Shads to list a few. Leadcore is dacron trolling line with a strand of lead in the middle to weight it down. It will make your lures dive much deeper when trolled.

mw

[Stick in Mud]

I love casting for walleyes from shore (at least in the fall), and I usually use either shadlings or shad raps. I fish much farther north than many on this site, so pulling leadcore up here won't work very well (river doesn't get much deeper than 10 ft, at least where I fish most of the time). Like MW, my personal best walleye came from casting shallow water with a crankbait, and you can also get some great numbers if you can find the right water.

[Rick G]

Like carmike said, the river doesn't get very deep in this area. Casting to structure or long lining crank baits like the Lindy Shadling or Shad raps in the 5 or 7 size work well. When the water temp gets into the 50s I tend to use more stick baits than shad bodied baits.