Oberst

Wondered if anyone has put lithium batteries in their boat and what their observations are.

I got that yeti when I camped in Northern Wisconsin for several days at a time away from any services. In hot weather it kept my bait for days, and a few cold ones too!!

I've always camped in my truck at Stockton and fished mostly in the State Park area. Last week my wife got us a cabin and although the weather looked like it would be hot and calm I was confident we could at least troll up some crappie for a fish fry or two. Man, that didn't work out! In the past I've always been able to get some decent crappie trolling. I'd run dipsy's or clip weights to some lines to cover the water column down to 20 feet. Typically ran lures like these on 10 pound fluro leaders: It's not like we got nothing trolling, but close to it. Just small crappies. So tried running spinners deep, right off the bottom, and did little there too. Then switched to a single rig, like this one: Ran half crawlers and got some fish; mostly white bass but some walleye, all 13", like this one. Normally I get some walleye there are keepers mixed in. Nope. I had to run my big motor as my trolling batteries were acting up, but was able to stay around 1.5 mph. Caught some bluegill too but not the big bruisers that are a pretty nice consolation. I have a small Yeti cooler I keep in the boat for a pop and crawlers. The state park raccoons had no problem opening that up. Wired it shut after that. What if I had a dozen nice crappie in there! So my wife is in the boat for three days and we catch nearly nothing. Now she's wondering what I've been doing on all those trips to Stockton! I'm wondering too . . . And its not like we didn't see fish; here's a finder shot loaded with them. I know they are smaller fish, but they don't look like bait fish either. I figured some crappie or bluegill in there. Guess that's a reason for a camera. No doubt the guys who fish the hot summer days regularly would have a better story than this to tell!

This will be a great way to try out kayak fishing, and assess what features to look for in buying a kayak if you want to go that direction. These fishing kayaks are expensive, and in my case I'd probably rather rent occasionally than lay out all that investment if I'm not going to kayak fish regularly.

Wearing Packer should guarantee success!

Yup; I got a Drotto this year, back in July. Heard about it on this site. I usually launch by myself, and getting the boat on the trailer required me to look over the bow, see where I was at, climb down, hook the winch; well, you know the drill. Now I just drive on the trailer until I hear the Drotto click and jump out of the boat and go. If I'm with someone else I just wave when the boat clicks onto the Drotto and they drive me out. The thing works just like I hoped it would. It's expensive; I think around $275, but I wish I have bought it years earlier. At 40 I wouldn't have thought of the inconvenience but at 70 I do! Bolts right where the roller was so installation is easy. Might be worth asking the question as a new thread on the forum to see what other owners say, but I haven't found anyone yet who wasn't glad they got one.

Drove down to Stockton Monday to fish out of Cedar Bluff for a few days. I saw it was going to be hot as all get out but thought that focusing on pulling crawler harnesses and slow death rigs would result in some walleyes, if not a lot, then some at least. Walleye with a pecan crust is a big hit with my bride, so how could I lose? At the camp ground, with the Alumacraft loaded and ready: That Bimini top is a real asset on a calm hot day, which it definitely was. Well, I ran those crawler rigs all over the place, two rods usually, and typically a foot to maybe 20" off the bottom. From 15 to 25 fow. Just about nothing after two and a half days. Not a walleye. No bass. A few drum and catfish. I could have caught crappie with crank baits but I was out for walleye. Got a couple decent bluegills trolling and decided to focus on them for a while, fishing from 10 to 20 feet on broken structure with a drop shot, but that too wasn't great. Brought maybe a dozen or so home, but not like some times where every drop yields a gill. Hard to beat them done whole in the pan: Was going to stay thru Thursday, today, but was worn out with the heat and quit. I was fishing from the bridge to the state park, and did see a couple Lunds nearby bouncing what I guessed were crawlers on the bottom. Didn't see any fish landed but then I only glanced over occasionally. 95 degrees and calm isn't the best of conditions but I would have thought to score here and there anyway. At least in the morning and evening. Nope.

Hot sunny and calm all week. Pretty miserable camping at Cedar Ridge but I thought 'buck up and make it happen!' My original intent was to get into the walleye, but it didn't turn out that way. After fishing Canada I stuck to some of those methods in spite of what I read here. Jigging raps and deep trolling for example. Zilch, except I got into the crappie pretty good and thought that was worth relating. For the most part I found them in 22-26 fow along more shallow sloping banks. There were not everywhere of course; just had to troll along and watch the depth finder; I have no idea what kind of fish it shows but if I saw a lot of activity at those depths there were often crappie there. I was moving between 1.6 and 2.0 mph as I used my 70 hp main motor. I haven't trolled much with my electric as the batteries need to last me for several days as I have no plug in. Fish were mostly 10-13" with some smaller ones. I was running 4 lines, lures running probably 15 feet deep to right down on the bottom. I know I'm on the bottom because of the 8oz snap weights that get the lure there no problem. Here's some nice ones. One morning I got 12 for maybe an hour and a half trolling. One time I hit a school and three rods popped. Pulling that many lines can be a potential disaster, but there were no snags in the area for the most part. I was most successful fishing up to maybe 10:30 or 11 a.m. They might bite anytime you find them but by then it was a furnace in the boat. On each corner I run two rods; the one on the outside with a Dipsy Diver tilted outward. The one on back with a snap weight, or an in line weight. Here's the most successful lures. They are all pretty small of course. That's a #4 Mepps spinner I put on a bottom line; I could feel it being hit but not much hooked up; finally got a big 13" on it. Was just curious what they would hit. If you haven't used a snap weight; that red clip attaches to the line anywhere you like, so you can have a long drop back from the weight; best done with 2 in the boat as the other person can clip off the weight as you wind the fish in. From the snap weight you can have any length drop line to the sinker; I usually go around 20". The other weight is an in line; I tie that into the line about 5 feet above a lure and just run it out the back. I'll pick that rod up and sweep it at times to give more action. One thing with the Dipsy or the weights; rod holders are essential. Too tiring to hold that much resistance. Now you would think dragging this stuff all over would result in some accidental walleyes, right? Nope; not a one in a few days. So I'm really grateful that Walleyedmike posted his success story. And it's not like I hadn't been running a bottom bouncer with a crawler during all this time; I tried that for quite a while, but not in the right places. After WM's posted I tried some bottom bouncing on big flat areas and had some success. Just had a day left but immediate;y caught an 18", and lost two nice ones at the boat. This morning I had a real bruiser on but it shook lose. I know some folks have been successful fishing points with jigs and crawlers, but I struggled there. Lots of fun no matter!! This post has been promoted to an article

Hey Krazo, no smallies in this lake unfortunately. I have fished Rainy and it’s loaded with them. No idea why they are in one lake and not another. Lots of fun when they are around!

In Canada that is! Always wanted to do a fly in trip and it worked out for last week. Drove about 4 hours north of Thunder Bay Ontario and then flew in a half hour. 28,000 acre lake with one outfitter and 5 cabins. We had a single cabin 8 miles away from the others and thousands of acres of prime walleye habitat to ourselves. Probably common to most fly-in deals. Average fish 18+ inches. These are big fat golden walleyes that taste like a million dollars. I'm sure there are big walleye in the lake but my biggest was 24 and we had a 26. But tons of 18-22" fish that hit hard. I used only lures and caught about 50 a day, virtually all in 5-8 feet of water. Trip cost around $900 after the exchange rate, not counting what it takes to drive that far. 1,100 miles from Springfield; ugh! That included a 14 foot aluminum boat and 10 hp motor with gas. Perfectly adequate. Needless to say beautiful country; no roads or noise. Had one day where the wind blew up white caps and it was in the high 40's to start. Chilly all day. Perfect walleye weather and trolling was red hot. Rods went off constantly. Good sized northern pike up there as well. With this hot weather, sitting on a far north lake where the mornings are cool and crisp and a dip in the lake is refreshing sounds pretty good!

Another great report with useful detail!!

Was down last week thru Fridayy, figuring to troll up crappie and walleye, with some shallow fishing thrown in to boot. I've dreamed of hitting the big crappie in shallow water and started with that; here in a shallow cove with slip bobbers set between three and six feet with minnows. Stopped there because I saw a crappie dart past a jig I had been casting. I did get a few nice fish that way, but couldn't locate a pattern, and didn't see many other boats catching much. Was fishing out of Cedar Ridge back under the bridge toward LIttle Sac arm. This bobber fishing only works for me if the wind is blowing very hard. If it is the hassle of keeping the boat in place and the bobbers really gets tiring. But you can see it was nice this night. Always fun to watch a bobber! Next, I thought, try trolling. My boat is set up for trolling; I can run 5 rods effectively without tangles. Really painful though to run the spread into an underwater obstruction! In this setup I have two rods deep off the back with clip on sinkers up to 8 ounces. No problem running a crawler at 30 feet. Side rods have dipsy divers running out and away at 15-18 feet deep. Far back rod on left is a surface line. Lures are various crankbaits in mostly bright colors, like rainbow and flo orange. And a couple days this approach paid off nicely with fish like this 14 incher below. Some doubles too. That's a small Rippin' Rap in gold in its mouth below. I was feeling a little sassy at that point, but a day later that quickly changed. I still caught some fish, but on Friday it was cool and overcast and very windy and trolling was a lot of motor time for not much. I see other folks trolling walleye all the time, and catching fish too. Why the heck I can't seem to get more than one here and there I have no idea. With that many rods down, and at least two of those running right off the bottom over all kinds of terrain one would think . . . I typically troll from 1.5 to 2 mph. Tried bottom bouncing a crawler on a Lindy rig using the slower electric motor and nothing there. Every one of the female crappies I cleaned had eggs! I threw a bunch back but assume they did too. Was really surprised. The wind started blasting Friday, and though not a bass fisherman of any ability decided to fish the leeward bluffs. Did have some fun with that; biggest was 16". Mostly on unweighted Senkos but did get one off the surface on a decades old Bass o'Reno! Couldn't complain about the three days, but was reminded that, for me, Stockton is always a challenge.

Dang it!! I’m coming down tomorrow from St Louis. A week ago the water was still cold and fishing spotty. Trolled up some crappie but haven’t got in on shallow bite and hope to now. Stop by if you see black Alumacraft tiller, probably with canvas top up.