Walleye fishing

[Swimming Minnow]

Live bait vs artificial. Who is having luck with what? Twister tails, raps, minnows or leeches.......

I have been using leeches with Lindy rigs and leeches bobber fishing with a jig and or a hook and haven't been as successful lately. I'd like to hear what people are having success with.

[Great Outdoors]

Fishing is slow just about everywhere because the water temps are much cooler than normal, and do not differ much from the surface to 20+ feet.

In fact, I'm not detecting a thermocline in Burntside Lake, which is clear & deep

I'm catching Walleyes in water from 6-25 feet, but not with any regularity.

[leech~~]

I have been having luck around 30' drifting using a Leech and Northlander spinner rigs. Had some bites on crawlers as well but I really hate using them as I get bit off more then I bring in!

[B-man715]

Gotta have all of the tools in your toolbox

Lately I have been searching with cranks, then dialing in with live bait.

[Swimming Minnow]

Gotta have all of the tools in your toolbox

I hear ya. It's good to see that people are having success with a variety of tools. Overall it sounds pretty slow unfortunately.

Anybody having more success with a certain color?

[Great Outdoors]

Keep it simple and stick with the plain hook or jig tipped with a leech, or part of a crawler.

When fish are lethargic, cranks baits don't work very well.

[MattL]

I haven't been out in Southern MN for a couple weeks, but 90% of the time I'm using cranks down here. Probably be trolling most of the time from now until the water starts cooling off again depending on where I find fish the next time out.

[Lawrence Luoma]

This time of year I'm ether only using nightcrawlers or trolling cranks.

[otterman91105]

The lakes i fish are getting to hard to get into the shallows for crank baits, but i have been having really good luck with jumbo leeches. In 14'-19'. I have never fished with fake bait.

[B-man715]

Did very well on cranks/leadcore lately in 18-25'. Some schools of walleyes were suspended 5-6' off of the bottom, but most were 1-2' and very easy to pick off on the graph.

Spinners and crawlers worked well too.

Could hardly buy a fish jigging or corking..... they wanted something faster.

Surface temp was 71.I had a lot of fish swing and miss the cranks, and most of them that I did catch were hooked under the jaw. My theory is they were less aggressive and coming up to the baits to knock them out or take a look?? At first I thought I was "lining" the suspended fish, but I kept going up and nothing changed until I was out of the strikezone.

Last weekend the fishing was better, with the majority of the fish hooked by the front treble and some even engulfing the #5.

Here are two pics right in a row. You can see two fish hanging tight to the hard bottom, then a school of fish right before the transition to soft, and then a school of bigger (or closer) fish just off onto the transition.

In the second pic there is over 20 fish under the boat

These were taken when I was in search mode (almost 4 mph). Once I found them I marked them with waypoints and trolled over at 2-2.5 mph)

These are all walleyes!!

[pikerliker]

A buddy and me picked up a couple pulling spinners with leaches in 17-19 ft on Friday. Also a bonus bass a little shallower in about 13 ft. Saw many more fish on the graph but couldn't get them to cooperate.

[leech~~]

Pulled 5 nice Eye's and lost 3 out of 45' to 48' this weekend deep trolling. All were suspended 20'-25' feet down. Buddies in another boat got skunked fishing Lindy's in 25'-30'. Fun stuff!

[hnd]

live bait for me is bringing in too many unwanted fish this time of year. dialing in cranks or jigs and tails is giving me more eyes and saugers right now. the occasional bass and flathead will hit but 80% of the time i've got the right species on. minnows, leeches, and worms right now, i'm pulling drum off nearly every other cast.