There's More Than One Way to Skin a Cat (or Catch a Walleye)

  Good advice for sure except that I really prefer artificials. The next day we started looking for fish in 25 to 35 feet of water and found that many walleye were appearing on the graph and were spread over a large area.  This made me happy because it was an ideal set up for pulling unweighted cranks on long lines, something I do often for post-turnover, bottom related muskies.  Once we found the right lures, line length and speed to keep our baits running between 25-27 feet down we consistently caught fish.   [caption id="attachment_2128" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Results of a properly run crank bait."][/caption]   The key to this technique is to get your bait in the strike zone.  Lure style, color, size, action, etc. matter not if you are running at the wrong depth.  We used this technique several times at various times of day during our stay and always did well.  Lure color and style did not seem to matter as long as they ran at the right depth.   [caption id="attachment_2130" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="75 yards of 10lb. Fireline with a 4' mono leader put this bait where it needed to be."][/caption]   [caption id="attachment_2132" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="55+ walleye, 16"-22", on properly run crank baits in deep water."][/caption]   One of the nice benefits of trolling larger crank baits for walleye is the chance it gives you for large fish, be they eyes, pike or even muskie.  We caught one nice northern and Greg had a strong hit that resulted in a bite-off.  On our last evening of fishing we were pleasantly surprised to catch a large muskie that took over 20 minutes to land and gave us both a great memory.   [caption id="attachment_2133" align="aligncenter" width="271" caption="49.25" of "finned fury" caught using "very hard minnows" 25' down over 30' of water!"][/caption] The last hour of our trip we caught several more walleye.  Around us were two boats trolling crawlers at about one mile an hour, another boat slowly dragging Lindy rigs and Greg and I speeding along at 2.0-2.2 mph with our cranks and we all were catching fish.  You have to love Eagle Lake and Vermilion Bay Lodge!        ]]>

8 thoughts on “There's More Than One Way to Skin a Cat (or Catch a Walleye)”

  2. Andy
    Reply

    Very nice pictures Brad! I really like the musky. In the early spring, we almost always accidentally catch a musky or two, but for whatever reason, I rarely experience that in August. The diverse fishery of Eagle Lake is really a big plus! Did you give the Popeil Pocket Fisherman a whirl? Brian caught a pike on a PPF and stick bait our last day.

  3. Andy
    Reply

    Gord,
    Brad’s nice looking hat reminds me of a suggestion. I think that in recognition of your momentous 20’th anniversary that you should purchase all of your guests a custom embroidered Tilley Hat with a VBL logo. Now that is likely to be a little “spendy” for you, so maybe you could take pre-orders? You could be a real trend setter on Eagle Lake. See: http://www.hatsrcool.com/blog/?p=353

  4. Gord
    Reply

    Good post Brad…..some good ideas, and to think you didn’t even have to post a picture of your soiled boxers!
    On the hat thing….sure, I could order some $80 Tilley hats and put a $20 embroidered beaver on them………any takers? How ’bout a knock-off tilley?

  5. Andy
    Reply

    Very nice of Gord to throw in the embroidered beaver in the price of the $80 hat. Only the original Tilley Gord. Maybe Charles would let you embroider that beaver catching the musky? If so, I’m in.

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