nathanhooper

Caught 2 this year using the above method. Like fins said, keep them small. I personally would not be afraid to upsize the hook, but did catch some on the smaller size hook.

Nice. I had a fish break my line once last year and ever since then I set my drag really light. Now the only thing that breaks my line is me when I cant get them unhung from the bottom of the lake..... Gotta love those line screamers. I was told a guy caught one there around the dam not too long ago that took all his line off the reel because he could not turn it. He was using striper gear too. Not sure how that happens, but who knows.

Go to Indian creek if you want to kill geese. Them dang things have just about covered the entire dock with crap! Had them almost take off our heads coming into the dock also.

Lol. I know. I was going to put "with safari written on the side" in that post but thought it might be going a little to far.

Yes sir. Thanks for being an inspiration.

Oh, I realize that some people have a hard time with it and I don't mean to try to irritate people. I generally will not knowingly do something that offends someone. If course, within reason, I'm sure there are some tree huggers that would take offense to any of those fish. I'll refrain from showing the cute little brownies .

Ok, if you want to find me I'm in a big white center console usually around molder hollow....

I have read a lot on it, never caught one myself so can't say first hand, but hear it's very good. Just a little harder to clean. If I caught one I'd eat it.

I know, I know. I really thought about that. I thought, I should leave that guy out of the picture, but I figured I'd show him anyways. Be easy on me. But I am telling you, there is no shortage of them and I am a sucker for small mouth. I don't know what it is about them, maybe they eat more crayfish or something than other fish, but I love the taste of them.

I said I'd be happy with two, so I guess I should be happy. Started with this.... And after..... Started on the water little before 6. Wish now that I had gotten out just a tad sooner. Ended around 8:30, had it been a weekend would have stayed out longer. I guess my transducers were hot because early on I looked at the water temp and it said 89 degrees. lol. That's stinkin hot! But later on it had come down to 86 or so. Had some good cloud cover so that helped with the heat anyways, water was relatively calm until the after work boaters hit the water. I am blaming my first lost lure on them.... I caught two more than those pictured, a SM and LM(or maybe spot, he was tiny). All were caught on #7 flicker shad, at ~30' deep. I want to say a big thanks to the guys on here in helping me. Its a given with me, but I appreciate it when people put up with my questioning. I trolled them on down riggers. I think I was going a tad too fast as most bites came when I was turning and one when I slowed down. Next time I'll use the trolling plate. The walleye were hanging right at the bottom. In fact, it is one reason I lost both new lures I just bought. Fins wrote an article on them earlier in the year, and I even talked with him regarding running depth. I found that with my lures 50' back I was running in the neighborhood of 8'-10'. When I would not pay attention to my graph and run up on 28' FOW I could see the rods ticking and got hung up 3 times. Yes, I am a slow learner. Pay attention to your sonar genius. One time both lures got hung, but was able to get both back. The riggers were set at 22' and were verified by seeing them on sonar at that depth. I caught all 5 fish when I hit water 30'-32'. I could see some fish deeper but bet they just were not wanting to come up the 4' or so to bite the lure. Had it been dark, it might have changed things. I used rubber bands to help me see the fish. I was concerned that I would drag around a small fish without knowing and it worked great. Just a loop of the line and a half hitch then attach the rubber band to the clip. My clips only have so much adjustment so one setting was too light, the next is fine for fish 2lbs+, but not under. The fish were all taken around the points near Indian Creek. The flicker shad were firetiger and the pro version in flashy perch. I like that bait, very good looking. I can tell you where it is under water.... After loosing it the only other one I had close was the silver black back one. Standard shad color. It picked up the second walleye. I'll be back out again. I'll pay attention next time and hopefully come back with the lures I left with. I feel confident that had I spent a little more time out there I could have limited out. But, I called it the other day when I said I'd be happy with two, so I cannot complain. Good eats for me and my family now! One thing I find just as enjoyable is when I get back to the dock and families camping come up to ask about my success. I am amazed when people have a surprised look on their face when I say I caught walleye. Got to show a curious mom and her kids who had never seen one before. Good stuff.

Yum! I'm going after them tomorrow. I'd be happy with two. Lol

Guess I'll have to look it up.

lol. Hey, where one door closes, another one opens up. Not sure how comfortable I would feel with someone skiing that close to me with an outfit like that though.

lol. I know its not funny, but it is one of those not funny laughs when I picture people swimming in beaver and then all of a sudden coming out with leaches all over them. That would change a lot. Hey, look at it this way, maybe there would be less people willing to ski and stuff. Ok, so that's the selfish part of me coming out. I have thought about using leeches in the past. I know of a pond that makes your skin crawl when you walk by it with all the leeches swimming in it. But I honestly do not feel like messing with them. I would think that it would take a major dump of leeches to get an established population though. I would think the stray one here and there would quickly be gobbled up by passing fish. The only waters I have personally been in that held leeches were those which did not have a high population of fish or have as many different species as we do in Beaver. But I am sure they could live in it in some places. I am no leech expert. I lost faith in those reports a while back. Its funny though, because I know of two different guys who both commented on the report just this weekend and I gave the same example as you pointing out that its highly unlikely that walleye are actually being caught in 5'-10' FOW. I don't doubt that one would swim up that shallow at some point in the night, but I have not been catching them that shallow since the middle of June. After that I was consistently catching them at 20'-25', so it only makes sense they would be deeper than that at this point.

I'll add a little to this. I am one of those guys who feels like giving info can't hurt. I'll tell you the truth, as much as I will give. There are a few I give specific details on where I find fish, but I don't give out exact spots. I'm sorry if that offends you. But I did run the dam area with a friend the other night. Might have chosen a different spot if I would have been driving, but I go with his knowledge as he has caught and put me on more stripers than I have alone. We fished the dam area from the dam around the camp area shore. I was not looking at the graph the whole time but know that there were many fish that I saw marked. We fished mostly in 35'-40' FOW. Never caught any there, but marked a LOT of fish. We went over to dry creek and finally ended up with a baby striper. Only ran the down riggers pulling bomber long a's. I am stoping with the striper and switching to the walleye myself now. I'll give a report Wednesday as long as the rain holds off. Wish I had more of a report than that to give, but I don't Thanks fine for the help you give us. . Doesn't go unappreciated.

I think your right about this. What electronics do you use on your boat? How long did it take for you to get the hang of using them?

I hear you. I could see going all out for a fish like this. I love me some walleye. If you like something that well then the money associated with it is gonna come. I have been chasing stripers, but I guess you could say I'm not all that about them because I refuse to buy some of the things that a lot of guys do that chase them. I've invested, but only so much as stuff I can use on other species. Heck, I'd drop a couple grand if in the end I would be pulling in fish, like you show in your photos, on a regular basis. I think the hardest part of any fishing is trying to learn what/where the fish do/like to live. If that makes sense. Lure/bait is just one of those things you can switch up to try different things when your confident the fish are around, but if your not confident in them being around then you can't be confident in your bait. That's how I see things anyways.

Nice, whatcha use for bait/lure?

A couple of those thinner lines is my bait, but nothing below 30' for sure.

] Then a few seconds later.....

Got out last yesterday after work for a while to use up the rest of my live bait I had. Not the best scenario, as I have fought the wind almost each time I have been trying this live bait thing and yesterday was no different. First thing to do was to learn from my mistakes so I went to HLS and got me some 6/0 hooks. Man those things looked huge, and they looked even bigger when I put a bait on them, but that was the ticket for solid hookups with the fish. Lesson learned. So I drove around a little checking a few different spots, refraining myself from settling on one when I only saw an arch or two. Made it to one spot and saw a stack of fish below. Of course it had to be out in the open where the wind is the worst and after a few failed attempts at dropping the bait down, I finally got way up wind and used my trolling motor to slow me down on the drift over them. Put it right in their face and bingo, fish on. Pulled up a good SM and figured since the lines/arches were a little on the thin side. I thought it might have been a walleye as I know they are in the area. Wanting to target those darn stripers I decided not to let the SM eat any more of my bait and I moved on to the next spot. After pulling over and not seeing much in the area I wanted to fish....I ended up in an area I had seen good sign before. It was in a protected cove, and quite pleasant... Put the poles out and drifted to the 40'FOW mark I had been seeing most of the fish suspended in right around 30' and to the bottom. Bingo again, nice 3-4lb LM. While I was putting bait back on that rod, down goes another, 4-5lb striper. Finally, I had got it figured out....lol....yea right. I say that because I immediately reverted back to my old ways and thought, 'if they are biting here, they must be biting over there'. Call me stupid. So, instead of staying in a place they were biting, and a place it was relatively calm, I decided to let my boat drift over to the other area which turned out to be the windiest place around and was probably drifting at 3mph and doing all I could to keep the boat relatively slow. Game over. Of course this was the area I before mentioned. It really did not have any fish there anyways that I could see. Lessoned learned. When your catching fish in one area....drum roll please....stay in that area till they quit biting. I know, it sounds simple, but sometimes my brain does not work like that. So, one lessoned learned before and put into place, bigger hooks are the ticket and not a bite went without a hookup, but one more lesson to put into practice next time. I did pull over some very interesting looking stuff on my sonar. Not sure what it was, if it was a school or not, but it was something out there. Hope to get back out sometime soon, but the itch for some walleye has me torn now. I still think that I will target the stripers again, and leave the walleye chasing till it gets cooler, but it sure is tempting. I hope you guys will help a new fall fisher out this fall. Except for going out with friends on the very rare trip, This is the latest I have ever fished in the lake. Usually after summer kicks my butt I am done and ready for hunting. And while I am gearing up for it as we speak, I still want to keep fish on my radar and try the fall bite. I hear it can be almost like the spring, and so I want to try it. Would be nice to have a few packages of whites put back for the winter months, not to mention some yummy fish tacos with walleye.

Something tells me this was not a recent outing....

Nice eyeman, any details?

If we get to team up I'm in...only if I get to ride with Terry. LOL I would give it a try. Couldn't hurt too bad. Just depends on the entry fee and time to be held. I feel sure that I would be contributing my money to the better half of this forum, but would enjoy the fun of it regardless.

Good to hear you got on fish. These guys are the best when it comes to fishing help and have always been ready to help. Maybe next summer we should just have one big striper day where we all meet up to show the guides how it's done. Lol