Walleye mid lake - 8/29

[Jeff P]

was lucky enough to get out this afternoon for a little prospecting trip.  Found a few - all too small, 15-16 inches at best.   Crawler rigs in 30ish feet of water. 

[Quillback]

Went out yesterday with OA member Jeb up at Indian Creek.  It was slow, we caught some 10-12" bass, Jeb did catch one keeper sized smallie.  Some early topwater action, I was trying out a Lucky Craft Bevy popper, small 1/4 oz popper, hooked several decent bass on it, but every one of them got off. Rear treble on that lure is really small, I'm going to up size the hook.

Jeb broke off a big ol' something, most likely a striper, on a popper.

[AR Huzgr]

11 hours ago, Jeff P said:

 Found a few - all too small, 15-16 inches at best.

When only catching smalls, I need to experiment with going out deeper to see if the bigs are there.  In reality, they are probably suspending over deep water which make them harder to catch unless you have ffs, which I don't.   Might be time to take the war eagle spoon out of the tackle box though and give that a try

[bfishn]

28 minutes ago, AR Huzgr said:

When only catching smalls, I need to experiment with going out deeper to see if the bigs are there.  In reality, they are probably suspending over deep water which make them harder to catch unless you have ffs, which I don't...

There's an easy way to do that. If you're trolling the flats/flat points, once you have your rigs at the right depth, just make a wide loop out over open water at the same depth/speed you were doing. On points, it beats trying to follow that sharp turn at the tip and have your baits stall or hang up cutting across the point. When working dropoffs, make the loop anytime you encounter an ditch or other sudden change, but don't loop until your baits have passed the feature, as those are often hotspots. Most of your fish will come where you usually work, but there are often more suspended over the channel like you said, and yes, they're often the bigger ones. 

[AR Huzgr]

Bfishn that's exactly what I was thinking of doing. Essentially calibrating your depth and then taking it over deep water. I had that thought watching a Tom Boley YouTube video sharpshoot walleye suspended in 60 ft water.   Granted was up north but for me thinking to try some things down here.

[rps]

At two of my favorite hotspots, I have used that tactic with success. Both are flats that suddenly fall off into the river channel. I would make one run up on the edge and then run back 10 to 20 yards outside that edge. Then I would run in the channel in the other direction, then turn and run up on the edge in the reverse direction of the initial run. That is also the way I identified the best locations for vertical jigging.

 

BTW, the direction you go does make a difference.