Bull 'Gill Strategies

Fresh, golden brown bluegill fillets are bound to bring a smile when you lay them on a plate beside baked beans and coleslaw at the summer cookout. Bluegills are a summertime favorite for a lot of good reasons.

• They are abundant and nearly everywhere.
• Their populations can stand good harvests, within reason and in most systems.
• They are generally easy to find and to catch.
• They are lots of fun on ultralight equipment.
• The action they provide is a great way to hook kids on fishing.

That doesn't mean catching decent-sized 'gills worthy of the livewell is a cinch. Small ones come easy, but getting the big bulls takes some research and work to find. Bluegill lakes do have some characteristics in common. For one, the fish usually relate to weeds and the bottom content they prefer consists of a variety of hard and soft bottoms. Some bluegill lakes are very shallow. In fact, small, shallow, fertile farm ponds provide some of the best action in areas of the Midwest. But in general, the presence of deep water near shallow bays where bluegills spawn and feed is a plus.A strong predator base is a second critical factor. Bluegills have a tendency to overpopulate and remain small unless predators like largemouth bass, walleyes or muskies are present to thin their ranks. Most biologists say a lake known to have large numbers of 2-pound largemouth may harbor big panfish. Biologists will also tell you that angling pressure can impact whether big bluegills are present. More on that later.

Study Map, Study Weeds, Time the Spawn

Hunting big 'gills begins with a lake map. Look for shallow, weedy bays with deep water nearby. The shallow weed edges may hold fish. But, once on the water, use an Aqua-Vu underwater camera or your sonar to search for the deeper submerged weed beds. The best vegetation is cabbage (or similar, leafy weeds) 12 to 20 feet down near transition areas between hard sandy bottoms and mud. This is a region where the food chain tends to be varied and abundant. Depending on water clarity, productive beds can even be deeper.

Every weed bed has an inside edge, outside edge and a top edge. Ignore one or more at your peril. Add to your understanding of the layout of weeds by slowly moving around the edge watching your sonar and GPS. Note the turns and points that serve as fish holding areas. A Humminbird side-imaging unit can help pinpoint details.

Use the wind. A slight breeze blowing into the weeds is good because it stirs the food up, triggers fish to feed and doesn't spook the fish as you motor around.

The general rule is that bluegills move to the spawning beds during the first full moon of June. However, not all 'gills spawn at the same time. Some will move into the shallows during the full-moon phases of July and August, or earlier in southern climates.

Gear & Presentation

Start with a sensitive rod like a 5-1/2 to 6-foot St. Croix ultralight. Light bites are telegraphed more noticeably by using a good, high quality rod. Spool up with 4-pound Gamma line. Gamma is so strong that this will be sufficient.

Try targeting shallow fish by casting and swimming light jigs or use a slip-bobber rig. The best jigs are the Lindy Quiver jig or the Little Nipper. The Queen features tiny wings, which create a slow fall keeping the jig in the strike zone longer. Experiment with colors. If things get tough, try downsizing your jig by using a micro sized ice jig, like a Fat Boy or Genz Bug. Your odds of success will go up by tipping your jigs with a small chunk of nightcrawler, a whole wax worm, or a few maggots.

Cast parallel to shoreline weed edges. Once fish are found, switch to a slip-bobber rig. Use a threaded bobber stop to avoid damage to light mono. Add a small Thill Pro Series float. The weighted version lets you cast into the wind so the bobber floats back to you over the top of the weeds. Avoid line damage by using a small rubber-core sinker or soft split-shot to balance the float so the rig will do its job and detect light bites.

If you happen upon a spawning ground, the larger bluegills tend to be at the heart of the colony where it's harder for egg predators to reach. But, be careful about taking the biggest bluegills from the system. Some biologists think stunting may occur, not from overpopulation, but when the biggest male bluegills in a lake are removed. As the average size of the mature males decreases, younger males have no biological reason to delay spawning until they reach a size when they can compete for the prime nests nearest the center of the colony. A fish's growth rate slows when they mature and begin spawning. As a result, some biologists wonder if taking too many big bluegills can lead to undersized fish in years to come.

Research to confirm the theory is underway in some areas of the country. Although the results are inconclusive, it's still a good practice to take medium-sized males and free the big males and females.

Many anglers ignore deeper beds, where the best bluegills often can be found. Vertical jigging works best along deep weed lines and over the top of deeper weeds. Vary the action, and let the fish tell you want they want. Afraid you're missing bites? Watch your rod tip very closely... slight wobble and "fish on!"

Depression Era Slabs

Crappies are an early season favorite for good reason; they're not that hard to find, and they bite when you can find them. They provide a great opportunity for getting the open water season and can be caught from a boat or the bank, and everybody can get in on the fun.

Most of the action surrounds shallow water including black bottom bays and channels where they will show up in masse and the action can be downright intense. These early runs are all about feeding and nothing more, as the actual spawn may be a month or more off. Somewhere between those first early season feeding runs and the actual spawn is a period of time when you can find big schools of the largest fish in a system holed up in specific areas, and when they are quite vulnerable.

Water temperature can be a guide in regards to the actual timing and the hottest action really starts when temps push into the lower sixties. Crappies typically spawn when water temps hold in the mid sixties, but that isn't the only factor to consider. Consistent weather and steady water temps is the key to finding the largest numbers of fish up shallow, and when they'll be the most active. Severe cold fronts can shut the whole thing down (at least for the sort term) and is something to be aware of.

Finding fish is the key and includes holes or depressions near potential spawning sites. A depression is nothing more than an area that's just a little deeper than the rest and a place where crappies will stack up just before they make their move to the beds. Heavier stands of hard stemmed bulrushes are where most of the spawning takes place, and are a preferred location as they typically provide the right bottom content and the right amount of cover. With that in mind, you can first start looking for potential spawning sites, and then try and find a depression in the near vicinity. If the water's clear enough and calm enough, you'll be able to see the depression (and the fish); otherwise, you'll have to rely on electronics to do your investigating. A likely hot spot would include a two or three foot deeper pocket surrounded by maybe four to eight feet of water. Throw in some green weeds for cover, and you may have found a real honey hole. With a good graph like the Humminbird 957c, you can draw it all out and see the drop and the weeds, and get an idea of how the area is actually laid out.

The real fun begins when you can start trying to put a few in the boat, and there's a couple of ways to get it done. Slowly trolling with a Minn Kota is preferred, as you can quietly creep along and work light jigs in the pockets and over the tops of the weeds and cover some ground until you find a concentration of active fish. Another option is dropping an anchor as staying put may be your best bet if you've found a tight bunch of fish, or it's too windy to be effective with the electric. Light line like four pound test green Silver thread along with tiny jigs including Northland Tackle's Panfish Tubes suspended below a float is a tough combination to beat. A nice soft action ultra-light can add to the fun, like St. Croix's six foot model AS60ULF spinning rod. The light rod will help keep big slabs from ripping hooks lose from their supper soft mouths. When the fish are really going the plastic is about all you'll need, but it wouldn't hurt to have some small minnows along for when they get a little fussy.

You can expect to find crappies to be found belly to the bottom to just under the surface, and all can be caught. On calm days with some cloud cover look for fish to rise up to the point that their dorsal fins are actually breaking the surface. When it happens; try casting a light jig just past the school and work it back into them. If you plop a bait right into the middle of the pack you run the risk of spooking the school and spooked fish won't bite.

Yes, crappies are excellent table fare when taken care of properly, but as good as they can be; use good judgment and consider releasing some of the largest fish. Too much pressure and too many fish caught and kept can have a detrimental effect on a population. By using some restraint you can preserve what you've found and is something you can take advantage of and have fun with for many years to come.

Hi-Tech Sonar

Sonar technology has come a long way since the early days.

Each baby step forward since the first consumer sonar appeared on store shelves has improved our understanding of how fish relate to structure and cover. This is all key information used by educated anglers to find and catch more fish.

But, sonar has made a quantum leap recently with the arrival of side imaging. With it, anglers can learn far more in less time about the layout of structure and find the subtle features that hold fish, whether it is inside turns and rock fingers, isolated boulders or weed patches. What once took days to discover subtle features about a lake, river or reservoir now takes just minutes.

"One sweep through an area and you can know exactly where and how everything lies beneath the water. That would take two hours with a traditional, down-looking sonar. And, you can search shallow water ," said Mark Gibson, Global Product Manager for Humminbird.

Gibson's job is to listen to the needs of fishermen and work with engineers to get it done. His passion is bass fishing in Alabama, where the company's factory is located. But, whether an angler is looking for bass, walleyes, crappies or other game fish, side imaging helps zero in on how fish are relating to structure and cover on a given day.

Just like other sonar technologies, we can thank the military for side imaging. Developed in the 1960's, its purpose was to track submarines. But, the U.S. Navy's side imaging model required running a large torpedo-shaped transducer far behind the ship, which is hardly practical for fishing. Humminbird was able to adapt it by shrinking the transducer to six inches and finding a way to attach it to a boat.

Side imaging works something like an MRI that is used in medicine practices. A very thin beam of sound just one degree wide is shot to each side of the boat. The coverage area stretches nearly from the surface of the water to almost directly below the boat. In 50 feet of water, the beams can reach 360 feet to the sides, a distance greater than a football field. In 15 feet of water, the scan covers about 150 feet to each side. The unit pulses about 30 times each second, each time taking an image of a thin slice of the surrounding area.

Sophisticated micro processors take the information and create a detailed video-like image. In one of Humminbird's promotional photos of a side imaging sonar screen, a swimming pool submerged when an Alabama reservoir was formed is shown. In one corner, the steps leading down into the pool are clearly visible.

In another photo taken from an actual screen, the side image shows a sunken sailboat that is complete with masts, rigging and open hatches.

Gibson recalls a time on the Mississippi River hunting walleyes on a wingdam. The side imaging showed exactly how the rocks were arranged and pinpointed small outcroppings that served as contact points for hungry walleyes.

Yet another image shows a standing tree. Proving these sonars are true fish finders, the view shows both bait fish and predators so anglers can see how both were relating to structure, cover and each other.

Once a feature is located, the unit can be set to shoot to just one side of the boat to show more detail.

Imagine using a standard down-looking sonar over a rock pile. Slowly but surely, a view of the way it's situated, how high it is and other features, such a weed patch or boulder, can be pictured. One pass with side imaging can reveal the same details. Pre-fishing for tournaments just got a lot easier. In addition to the pros utilizing it, side imaging is a great tool for anyone who wants to make the most of limited time on the water.

"Side imaging gives the complete picture of what's underwater," he said. "Pros and serious recreational anglers see it and say, "I've got to have it.'"

Now, add a down-looking sonar and GPS with Navionics mapping. All of these images are displayed in color on a huge 8-inch diagonal screen, which is found on the Humminbird 900 series. Controls allow functions to be displayed one at a time or you can choose two of the three functions - GPS, side imaging or down-looking sonar. By combining GPS mapping with sonar functions, a detailed picture of the area can be created complete with waypoints that mark key structures and features.

As complicated as it sounds, operation is a breeze. The menu all appears on one "page" on the screen. Adjust the sensitivity anyway you like. But, if things get out of whack, a simple click on the reset button takes the unit back to the factory defaults. The automatic settings were determined though consultation with professional anglers. These preset functions work well under most conditions.

Trouble in paradise

No matter how good your sonar is, its effectiveness can be sabotaged by poor installation.

With fiberglass boats, Gibson said one common problem comes when anglers mount their own transducers on the transom rather than shooting the signal through the hull. Transom-mounted transducers do well at low speeds, but air bubbles can foul the signal and therefore the image. Side imaging transducers do need to be installed on the outside in order to shoot out to the sides.

The speed of sound through fiberglass nearly matches the speed of sound through water, so the sonar can't really tell the difference between the two substances. Very little signal power is lost as a result.

A problem can occur when the wrong epoxy is used to glue the transducer down, he said. Do not use a silicone product, and make certain the glue is slow-cured epoxy that takes more than an hour to cure, he said. In addition, be sure to press down hard to remove any air bubbles in the glue.

Transom mounts are necessary with aluminum hulls. Gibson said his company supplies a template to help locate the transducer properly. Still, they can be installed at wrong angles.

Problems with the power source are another problem area. Poor splicing of cords, failure to solder connections which exposes wires to the elements, all can cause malfunctions, he said. Best advice with either hull Ð have a technician do it.

Advances in sonar technology, including side imaging, have created a tool that makes it easier to analyze structure and cover. The result is greater ability to fish fast. Fish don't stand a chance.

Meddling with Mid Summer Walleyes

By mid summer the hot early season action on a lot of good walleye lakes can slow down just a bit, but it doesn't completely stop and can still be pretty darn good. In fact tremendous catches are still being made, especially when it comes to the heavy duty models. You just have to be ready to make some changes and not get stuck doing the same things in the same places.

One of the first things you can do is try shifting into a higher gear and pick up the pace by employing a faster presentation. The ultra slow tactics that were so deadly just a month or so earlier may be coming up empty now. Techniques that allow you to cover plenty of water are the ticket, and includes trolling spinners and crankbaits.

Spinners are designed to deliver live bait with an element of speed and speed is where it's at for hot summer walleyes. A typical spinner rig includes a multiple hook harness like Northland Tackle's Rainbow Crawler Harness combined with a big fat night crawler.

Blade color is a consideration and it can pay to experiment which will help you fine tune a productive pattern. In other words; if you're catching some fish you might be able to catch even more with a simple color change. Northland Tackle has some awesome new blade colors including metallic fish scale blades along with red hooks and pearl beads. They also come with a five foot leader which is about as much as you need and gives you the option of shortening it up if the situation requires it. Another good spinner option includes using minnows which aren't usually associated with summer walleyes, but the combination can be deadly. A minnow and spinner trolled at a good clip can elicit strikes from walleyes that turn their noses up at just about everything else. Effective spinner minnows include larger fatheads, chubs, or even small suckers, and will depend on what's available.

Another consideration for dealing with late summer eye's is location, and looking a little deeper is usually a good bet, but not always. Clear lakes provide the best opportunity for finding deeper holding walleyes and deep can mean forty feet or more.

By looking over deeper structure with good electronics you can quickly find out if there is any potential for finding a deeper vein of fish. With incredible electronics like Humminbird's 997C (which is a color graph and G.P.S. combination with Side Imaging) you can take a 180 degree swath and cover a lot more water and see it like you've never seen it before. Side Imaging allows you to see what's below as well as what's to either side, out to 150 feet. Whatever you're using take a look at deep points, offshore humps, transition lines, and break lines and make note of any sign of life including schools of bait as well as fish holding close to the bottom. If you're not marking any of the above keep moving until you do. Try moving deeper and shallower until you begin to see concentrations of bait and fish. While there is a shallow to deep migration on most of our clearer lakes, just the opposite can be true on bodies of water that darken up. Many lakes start out relatively clear and then darken up by mid summer due to algae blooms and turbidity. In that case you may be restricted to working shallow water, as shallow as a few feet in the most extreme cases.

An option is the suspension factor whereby walleyes lift high off the bottom out in the middle of nowhere. It's a phenomenon that happens more often than you think and may be your best be for finding active late summer walleyes. Try looking outside classic walleye structure with your depth finder and head out into deeper water, including the main lake basin, and look for life. If you're seeing suspended schools of bait there is an excellent chance that you'll also find walleyes. Look for wandering eyes to hold just under the bait, and even in the middle of it. They'll hold just below their meal ticket until they decide to turn on, where they can simply move up into a school of bait and chow down.

Approaching suspended fish can be as simple as trolling a crankbait like a 3/8oz Walleye Diver with a bunch of line out while looking for a few biters. Even if you're marking plenty of fish chances are than only a portion will be active at any given time and you'll have to get your bait in front of as many fish as possible to help up your odds of making contact. If you get serious about trolling for suspended walleyes there's plenty of good info available including books and charts that can help you get a bait to run at a specific depth, with a certain weight line, as well as an exact speed.

Fortunately you don't have to be exact to be effective, but being exact will make you more efficient.

Open Water Summer Walleyes

It's time to step back and take a good look around if you want to get your share of catching mid-summer walleyes. If you've tried everything you know, in every possible place, you mave to dig a little deeper.

What you might not know or even expect is that many of the walleyes you've been chasing are now suspended, and is a common occurence in most bodies of water. It happens in natural lakes across the Midwest, the Great Lakes, Canadian Shield lakes, and it happens in many reservoirs. The thing is it's always a possibility, especially during the summer period.

Many anglers have a hard time accepting the fact that walleyes often suspend far off the bottom relating to nothing but their next meal. Sure they may have heard about suspension on lakes like Erie, but they just don't consider it when it comes to their home waters. Once you get past the skepticism and start to believe you can get down to the job of rounding up a few and putting them in the boat.

From natural lakes to the Great Lakes and even reservoirs, walleyes will often suspend when the conditions are right. On some bodies of water walleyes may be riding high one day and belly to the bottom the next. On others like Erie, it's unusual to find them any other way than suspended, especially during the summer months.

Suspension is triggered by a high riding food source like shiners, shad, alewives, ciscoes, and even perch. As seasonal temperatures continue to increase and mid lake temperatures begin to pop up things start to happen that get the whole process going.

Those warmer temps can spur plankton productivity as well as trigger insect hatches all of which will attract the aforementioned baitfish, which in turn will pull in ol' marble eyes. Wherever a solid bait source is found you can bet the walleyes won't be far behind, even it means leaving classic structure like rock humps and quick drop offs in the dust.

Methods for rounding up suspended walleyes can vary but the most efficient presentation is trolling with either crankbaits or spinner rigs. Some anglers have experienced success by using floating jig heads tipped with live bait and using extra long leaders, like twenty feet or more. It's a method that approaches walleyes from the bottom up, and can be effective when dealing with small groups of walleyes but it's not effecient when you have too many acres of water to cover before you sleep. In that case it would make more sense to opt for a faster more efficient approach, and is where trolling crankbaits and spinners really come in. Crankbaits in particular allow for a quick trolling pace and includes speeds up to three mph or more, which allows anglers to cover a maximum amount of water in the course of a day.

Selecting a crankbait starts by picking one that you have faith in and feel confident that if you run it past a walleye with an appetite that it will be accepted. Confidence baits that lend themselves to tackling suspended walleyes include Cotton Cordell Walleye Divers and Grappler Shads, as well as Smithwick Deep Rouge Jrs. The Grappler Shads are particularly effective at warp speeds and will run true at five mph or more. It also includes selecting a bait that will run at a particular depth, especially if you're marking most of the fish in a narrow band. There are several books and charts that are readily available like Precision Trolling, that give specifics of particular baits which can help greatly with determining running depth.

Spinners can also provide for a quick trolling pace, especially if you use the proper blade. Willow leaf blades are on top of the speed blade pile, while deep cupped Colorado's would be on the bottom. Colorado spinner rigs can't take the pressure of a high speed run and will spin out resulting in a twisted up mess, and of course no fish.

Another key to a successful spinner presentation is getting it to run at a particular depth. Spinners by themselves are shallow running and will need some sort of weight to achieve any kind of depth.

There are several ways to get the job done but Team Crestliner member and professional walleye angler Rick Olson has found that the easiest method includes the use of an in-line weight and an eight or nine foot leader. "The in-line weight keeps the whole process simple, and simple is good. To vary depth you can either vary the size of the weight your using, or adjust the amount of line you let out."

The ability to determine exact running depth comes with practice, but getting close can be as easy as finding out how much line it takes to get your rig to the bottom and adjusting from there. The thing is you hardly ever have to have your bait running at an exact depth to be productive as you will probably never find all of the walleyes holding at the exact same depth at the exact same time.

Another consideration is the fact that suspended walleyes can be extremely spooky and a pair of trolling boards may be in order. In-line boards like Cannon's Rover Board are relatively inexpensive and easy to use and will help get your baits out and away from the boat where you're more likely to encounter active fish. Another advantage to using trolling boards is the ability to increase the amount of coverage area by spreading out your baits, and allowing you to take a wider swath. It's easy to get confused with the whole suspended phenomenon but don't let it bother you.

The thing to do is relax and realize it's not and exact science, and you don't have to be perfect to be successful. However to be successful you do have to give it some time, and it could easily turn out to be time well spent.

Reaping Fall Bass by Ron Anlauf

With all the hustle and bustle of the summer bass fishing season, it's a relief to get back to a simpler more peaceful place and time. Gone are the hordes of anglers as well as the jet skiers and pleasure boaters churning the water to a froth. Although fall fishing is seldom as intense as what you might experience throughout the summer, it can still be awfully good, and chances are you'll have it all to yourself. Better yet your chances of nailing a real monster are never better than right now. Fall bass are usually pretty stout and in top condition and are about as heavy as they're going to get.

From early to late fall fish attitude and location can vary dramatically, and anglers better be ready to adjust. As water temperatures cool off , things change. The deeper patterns of late summer start to fall apart and bass can be found just about anywhere including deep, shallow, and somewhere in between.

However; it's the shallow areas that can see a lot more action early in the fall. Shallow structure like timber, docks, pad fields, and inside weedlines are some of the areas to concentrate your search.

There're no shortcuts to finding shallow water bass, and all the options should be checked out. When faced with expansive shallow water structure, it sometimes takes a little elbow grease to get the job done.

John Janousek of Nisswa, Minnesota likes to start with a presentation that lets him cover water quickly like casting a spinner bait: “I'll start with a 1/4oz Northland Tackle Reed-Runner Spinnerbait and get moving.

You can cast the bait to pockets in the inside weedline or run it right over the top of the remaining stands of weeds. Once you find a few fish you might want to slow it down even more and try straining an area with a jig n'pig or a plastic worm. On the other hand, the spinner bait might be the best thing going so don't be afraid to pick it back up again.”

Buzzbaits probably aren't the first lure that come to mind when you think of fall fishing, but they can be surprisingly effective. Early fall bass will take a top water more often than most anglers would like to think; But instead of burning a bait back as fast as you can, you might do better by slowing it down a notch.

As we move further into the fall season look for deeper patterns to become more consistent. Large flats scattered with green standing weeds are often the key to finding mid fall largemouth. Spinner baits slowly worked through the remaining weed growth can help you locate scattered fish quickly. Another top technique involves running crankbaits like a #5 Fat Rap or DT6 over these very same areas. Retrieves can vary from cranking the bait back just as slow as you can, to really picking things up and burning it in.

Most of the time you'll probably do better by keeping your presentations from a slow to medium speed; however, there are occasions when you may want to pick up the pace. Conditions to look for include extended warming trends and warm sunny afternoons. These factors can turn up the metabolism of otherwise reluctant bass and may now be triggered by a faster moving bait.

Later in the season more and more fish will show up on deeper structure like underwater points, rocky humps, breaks, and weedlines. A good fall technique for working deeper structure involves casting a pig n'jig and slowly crawling it along the bottom . During this process try to envision just exactly what is going on, and keep an eye on the line. Many times you'll not feel the strike, but will see a twitch in the line, or it may move off to the side. In either case it's time to set the hook.

The fall season can provide some exceptional angling opportunities, especially if you're into hooking big fat bucketmouths. Let's see; Big bass, no crowds, warm sunny afternoons, could it get any better?

Walleyes Under the Radar

There are a lot of unanswered questions surrounding the early walleye season like; What kind of lake would be best? How deep will they be? Will they be holding on rocks or gravel, sand or weeds? The answers to these questions can be summed up in one simple term; it all depends.

Picking a lake to get the season started can be as simple as going with a big name like Mille Lacs, Leech, or Winnebago, etc. They've got what it takes, namely thousands and thousands of walleyes. But along with all of those fish comes pressure, and lots of it. A better choice might be a sleeper lake, one that has a decent number of fish but really isn't getting the recognition. Sleeper lakes can be natural producers, or rely on heavy stocking efforts to support fishable number of walleyes, or could be a combination of both. It's the stocked lakes (natural producing or not) that have the best chance of falling beneath the radar. Stocking is the wild card as you never know when a particular class of stocked walleyes is going to take hold and show up in decent numbers. When it does the action can be phenomenal, but only if you know the opportunity is there. DNR websites and stocking information can help, especially the lake surveys that include test netting results. Big year classes of fish that stack up back to back can make for an ideal situation and deserves some opening day investigation.

Professional guide and PWT competitor Richie Boggs of Nisswa, Minnesota spends countless hours plying the waters of stocked lakes and offers some early season advice: “There's a bunch of lakes in the Brainerd area that don't get all that much pressure and are really good early in the season. What I usually look for are areas close to any incoming tributaries on the north end of the lake. Creeks or streams coming in could have attracted spawning walleyes and the north end of the lake is where the warmer water usually ends up. It's also where you can find weed growth that is more developed and weeds can be a real key to finding good numbers of early season walleyes.”

To put a few of them in the boat Richie will often employ the use of a live bait rig like many other anglers, but he does it with a twist; “Instead of the usual rig I'll crimp on a split shot a few feet ahead of a red hook and let out about a hundred feet of line. All that line gets the bait away from the boat which can make a big difference especially when it's calm and I'm dealing with spooky fish. I also like to use leeches or minnows early in the season as it's usually a little to cold for crawlers.”

Another technique he uses when working shallow water (maybe two to three feet deep), is to troll with the smallest Husky Jerks and let out about a hundred feet of Fireline. “I'll use the tiny cranks when the wind is blowing and the waves are pounding into a good area. Wind and waves can turn fish on and bring them up into really shallow water where they're often aggressive enough to chase down a crank bait. It also allows me to cover some water and up my odds for finding the biters”.

Richie will switch up tactics when he finds fish holed up in smaller areas like on a rocky bar or reef, or an isolated patch of weeds. “In that case I'll drop the anchor and throw out slip bobbers and leeches and really work the area over. A good spot can produce a lot of fish if you give it enough time, and by using a slip bobber you can keep your bait exactly where you want it.”

Professional fisherman and Team Crestliner member Dan Plautz of Muskego, Wisconsin uses another approach for finding overlooked walleyes and includes the use of a fourteen foot jon boat; “In my neck of the woods there's a few small lakes in the two to six hundred acre range that have decent populations of walleyes but have poor ramps and are tough to get in to. We can still get in there with a jon though, and pretty much have it to ourselves.”

Dan's top techniques includes getting on the water early and casting floating cranks and working the tops of rock humps and weed beds; “We've done really well casting cranks early in the morning and again just before dark. During the day I'll slowly move the boat along with a Minn Kota and pitch 1/16oz jigs tipped with redtail chubs and work the weed edges. If there's enough wind I'll drift with a Northland Tackle Roach Rig combined with a Gum-Drop Floater tipped with a minnow or a big leech and keep pitching the jig and minnow at the same time. The little floater will help keep the bait riding just over the tops of newly emerging weeds where walleyes can get a good look at it.”

Avoiding the crowds is the big draw to “under the radar walleyes” and in my mind the key to a quality experience. The extra homework and a little investigative angling could be well worth effort, especially when you've put it all together and are able to slip the net under that first fish. There are no guarantees but that's part of the challenge, and the fun.