trolling for walleyes. what do you like to use?

[slick2526]

Im just curious to see what are peoples favorite techniques when trolling for walleyes.

What time of the year do you use what tackle and why?

What is your favorite size and color of the lure you are using?

What pound test, length, color/size of blades, and hooks do you use on your snells and different lengths and sizes for what depth?

Guess I will start this out.

More often than not i find myself trolling with a 1/2oz chain weight with a hammered brass or nickel clolrado blade in a size 4 with a 12-16in snell on 8lb gamma. the hooks I normally use are VMC wide gap walleye hooks in size 4 or 6. I end up using this rig with night crawlers very often and also a single hook rig with a nice sized fathead or creek chub.

I do not troll crank baits to often seems i end up casting them most of the time.

[B K'S DAD]

Early season I like to use live bait (shiners). With 5' leader a number 6 gold hook we catch a lot of nice fish with this. the biggest was 31" long. And later crank baits shad raps minnows raps color does matter that much some are better then other. You just have to keep changing until you find what they like that day. I like use 6 or 8 pound fire line.

[metrofisher7]

I love to pull lindy rigs behind the boat for early season eye's. I cover a lot of water this way and i keep my bait in the bottom 2 feet of the water, keeping it in the strike zone. During the summer months i like to troll deep diving crankbaits and troll shoreline with sharp dropoffs. I normally catch eye's that way and get bonus pike and bass.

[Esox_Magnum]

Spring I'll troll lindys or spinners on bouncers, once the crank bite kicks in I'm a leadcore guy. Bouncers I run 7' rods with Abu 4600 reels spooled with 30# power pro. Leadcore is big line counters with 10 colors of leadcore, 8-9' salmon/steelhead rods or Fenglass, 20-30' fireline 10/2 leader and either shad raps or salmos for the lures. Colors depend on the day and mood of the fish. Live baits 99% minnows or Leaches, other 1% is Gulp or crawlers.

[cbrooks]

I drag alot of bottom bouncers during the day with a gold colored blade. At night depending on how late of the season, in July and August I'll troll shallow about 3 to 5 feet pulling Husky jerk-baits or Xraps. Thats where I catch most of my walleyes of the year doing.

[BobT]

Being a jig and minnow guy I rarely troll for walleyes.

If I am going to troll however, it is most likely going to be in mid summer. My lures of choice are

1. Spinner rig with a minnow.

2. Crankbait - speed trolling.

Bob

[yar 32]

Jointed shad raps all the way for me

[paceman]

I am primarily a Lindy Rigger. On the opener I will be fishing shallow dirty water so will be using a 3 foot snell, 1/4 oz sinker, bright number 6 hook pulling a shiner. About the end of may I will switch to slightly deeper structure basically the same setup with 5-6 foot snells and leeches. The second week of June will fine me working weed edges with crawlers. The full moon might find me trolling edges/humps at night with a perch colored shad rap.

[PerchJerker]

To me trolling means crankbaits, or maybe crawler spinner harnesses. Anything slower than that is rigging, not trolling.

It's really hard to answer questions about favorites, because it changes all the time depending on the time of year and the body of water.

I don't pull rigs unless I have too, and then it's usually a smaller finesse rig on a flouro leader with small hooks. Snell length depends on how fast I'm going and how close the fish are to the bottom. Sometimes I like small flicker blades, sometimes I like bigger colorado blades. Sometimes hammered patterns, sometimes bright colors, sometimes more natural colors, and that usually depends on the lake.

I like trolling crankbaits, either on contours or for suspended fish. Colors change frequently, you need to keep experimenting to see what's hot, but I like red bills and bleeding gill patterns. Bait styles change depending on the time of year but it's usually tight wobbling shad baits in warm water and slower wider wobbling baits in warmer water. Small baits like glass shads and jointed shads and hornets behind leadcore is becoming a favorite of mine too.

[tunrevir]

I'm with PJ on this one. I start the year working smaller cranks #5 shad raps and wallydivers in shallow water 4-6'. If I'm not getting hit shallow, I work slightly deepr with #7 shad raps, thundersticks, husky jerk-baits. Colors vary from one body of water to the next but typically I start with a firetiger and a pearl wallydiver and work the colors from there. I love running cranks in cold water and early spring when the fish are aggressive.

Tunrevir~

[jwmiller33]

Quote:

trolling for walleyes. what do you like to use?

a BIG net

[canman]

I like to pull spinners most of the time trolling. They work from 2' of water out to 30' plus for me. I let the lake dictate colors and baits (crawlers/minnows/leeches). Most of the time though I'm either on the inside or outside weed edge. This allows me to cover a lot of water and catch many nice fish!

[NCLaker]

Anyone troll Salmo Hornets? Heard they picked up in popularity last year. Picked up a few to give it a try. Almost too light to cast, tried tolling it end of season - great action.

[PerchJerker]

Anyone troll Salmo Hornets? Heard they picked up in popularity last year. Picked up a few to give it a try. Almost too light to cast, tried tolling it end of season - great action.

They've been popular for a few years now. I love them. I troll them a lot and cast them a lot too. It's probably my best casting crankbait for catching metro walleyes out of the weeds!

[markkstanley]

I fish with Perchjerker. To make it short I went from zero Salmo hornets at the beginning of summer to about two dozen and will likely add more. He made a beliver out of me. Also like the deep taildancers. Early in the year #5 raps or shallow raps with leadcore. Been playing with swim bait/lead core combo. Works for pike, green carp and muskys but no walleyes yet. Almost never pull spinners. And if you are trolling under 1 1/2mph in the summer you are riggin not trolling.

[markkstanley]

I fish with Perchjerker. To make it short I went from zero Salmo hornets at the beginning of summer to about two dozen and will likely add more. He made a beliver out of me. Also like the deep taildancers. Early in the year #5 raps or shallow raps with leadcore. Been playing with swim bait/lead core combo. Works for pike, green carp and muskys but no walleyes yet. Almost never pull spinners. And if you are trolling under 1 1/2mph in the summer you are riggin not trolling.

[riverrat56]

#4 Hornets are too light to cast with any type of wind or heavy gear, #5's are great though for working any type of sparse weed beds or rocks in 4-7'.

As for trolling, Once early June rolls around I'll start pulling #7 Minnow Raps, #5 SR and #4 Hornets in 7-11' at ~1.9-2.2mph. As summer moves on I bump up lure size, depth, and speed. For mid summer I really like Salmo Bullheads for trolling depths up too 20'. They also have a great wide action at slow speeds, not the thump of the Hornet, much more subtle and slow. I'm not much for pulling spinner, I'll do a little of it but mostly stick to cranks.

[crothmeier]

I was brought up pulling lindy rigs, either with a spinner, or float, or plain hook, or with 1 bead. Caught alot of fish this way with leeches. I've been working more and more toward cranks, the wally divers, shad raps, one thing I would like to get to know better is the lead core technique.

The lake we have a cabin on is CLEAR and the only way to catch walleyes mid summer or during the day is deep, and i jsut cant get down to them!

[SM1]

crothmeier- there are many ways you can get those cranks down to deeper water including leadcore like you mentioned. Three-way rigs, bottom bouncers, snap weights to name a few. You could also check out some of the rap deep tail dancers and various reef runners that will dive down to 20+ft on their own.

[crothmeier]

Yeah i just picked up a few Deep Diving Tail Dancers that troll to a 30' depth. 25% off on the rapala sale last weekend!

[rodmaker]

I like to use floating raps, shad raps, husky jerk-baits, and the tail dancers. I'm going to get a few Salmos and give them a try also.

You can cover all depth ranges with these.

[carpmanjake]

i rarely fish from a boat. but when i do. i will fish big baits like 4" redtails, or shiners on a lindy rig, or a heavy swimbait or shad rap, or other crankbait. if i mark fish but arent getting hits i will stop and cast, some jigs and 5" plastic worms, if nothing then i will swith to crawlers and leeches on lindy rigs and smaller cranks

[Tony Holland]

1. Wally Diver

2. Salmo Hornets

3. Rip Shad's

4. Rapala shad #4

5. Rapala Deep Tail Dancers

[hanso612]

1. Yo Zuri Deep Diving Crysal Minnow in German flag

2. Rapala Deep Tail Dancer in Hot Tiger

3. Reef Runner in Cheap Sunglasses or Pink Flamingo

4. Bandit lures Walleye Bandit deep runner in Gold

5. Rapala Shad Rap in Fire Tigre, Deep Husky Jerk in gold or green.

On Superior I like

1. Wally diver in red

2. Hot n Tots in pink and gold

3. Rapala Husky Jerk Clear body with foil inside and pink on top.

4. Fire Tigre Shad Rap

5. Yo Zuri Cystal Minnow Suspending in Tennessee Shad

I love my Salmo musky baits and plan to try hornets this year.

[Tony Holland]

3. Reef Runner in Cheap Sunglasses or Pink Flamingo

quote]

Love the cheap sunglasses also!!