Lake Ontario United

In parts I and II I covered some of the basics of trolling as well as some of the gear and gadgetry involved. In this third and final part, I’ll concentrate on some of the techniques we use to make it work! To do this best, and to keep my own interest level high, we’ll spend a day hunting “Hog” walleyes on the eastern end of Lake Erie. Let’s go fishing!

Part III - Techniques (Making it Work)

One of the great things about walleye fishing on eastern Lake Erie is that some of the best fishing occurs during the best weather. Unlike river or shallow lake fishing, where overcast days and a good walleye chop seem to trigger the bite, a nice, sunny, flat August day is prime time for eastern basin Hogs. After launching the boat and checking out our equipment, we motor out of Barcelona Harbor and head due north. In fifteen minutes or so we’re reading 60 feet of water. Having kept an eye on the finder on the way out, I’ve noticed small schools of bait fish just starting to appear on the screen so we’ll begin our troll here. We’ll turn slightly towards N/E on the compass, which will take us very slowly to deeper water. Dropping the throttle all the way back only brings us down to 2.5 mph on the GPS, so we drop the trolling plate and increase our rpm’s to maintain 2 mph as a starting speed. The first rod in action goes on a downrigger. Although a line-counter reel isn’t really needed, I’ll use one anyway. I run a long lead behind the ball when fishing for walleyes. I believe that walleyes, unlike some fish which seem attracted by the ball, tend to be ball shy.

After hooking a plump crawler onto one of my 3 ft. long worm harnesses, I feed it back about 100 feet before pinching the line between the pads of the release hooked to the downrigger ball. With the ball now at water level and the display reading 0, I now back off on the drag and hit the down bottom on the downrigger. Once I’m reading 50 feet on the downrigger display, I stop it’s descent. I then flip on the clicker, slightly tighten the drag on the reel and then reel in the slack line while the rod’s in the holder. Although the display is reading 50 feet, the ball is actually down something less than that due to the angle of the cable. By noting the amount of backward angle, I can get a pretty good idea of our speed at this point. We’re now finally fishing!

For my next offering I’ll put out a dipsy diver along with another crawler harness. These do require a line-counter reel, unless you prefer counting line passes on the spool. The rods I use for this are 8 foot, heavy action because of the amount of stress that these hard pulling devices put on them. The diver is attached directly to the 30# test PowerPro line with a good quality heavy snap swivel. Behind the diver is a 6 inch rubber snubber (shock absorber) followed by a 4 foot leader of 20# test fluorocarbon. A snap is used to attach the harness, which I tied with a ball bearing barrel swivel already. Once the fin on the diver is adjusted to run right 3-1/2″ and the release arm is latched, it’s fed out slowly with tension on the drag. Without tension, the diver could easily spin and tangle. I like to place the rod in a holder with the audible clicker on at this point and let the dipsy feed out slowly while I start on the next rig. The clicker serves as a good reminder that I’m feeding line out. When my counter reaches 130 feet I simply tighten the star drag just to the stopping point, leaving the clicker on. Even though I’m a rod watcher, it’s great to hear that drag start clicking away! This rig was put out on the same side as the downrigger but will run fine since the diver was set to run right. Even though they’re running close to the same depth, they’re probably 15 to 20 feet apart.

Now we’ll move to the other side of the boat. Since we’re now working on the left (port) side, I want to make sure that the in-line board that I’m going to put out is marked left. Because I’m going to use a snap-weight behind the board to get my offering down, I’ll need to use a line-counter here as well. This will also require a med./hvy. or heavy action rod but I’ll go with a 9 footer which gives me a bit more action in the tip, making it easier to read. I normally run my boards off the same side because it makes comparing the rod bend as well as the board’s location much easier. On a calm day it’s fairly easy to tell if you’re dragging a big fish, but in a heavy chop it can be pretty tough to tell. To get this rig set I’ll snap a clown colored Renowski onto an 8 foot leader which is connected to my 30# PowerPro with (of course) a good quality ball bearing swivel. I prefer Sampo swivels, which are ridiculously expensive, but they rarely need to be replaced. The lure is first fed back about 50 feet, but this distance isn’t really important. At this point I re-zero the line-counter and attach a 3 oz. snap-weight to the line. From experience (and the depth charts) I know that at 2 mph a 3 oz. weight will take my line down to a depth of about 1/3 the distance of line out. However, they’re very speed dependent so they rise and fall quite drastically on turns. This is probably what makes them such effective fish finding devices. Once I’ve fed out 150 feet of line, I snap the in-line board on.

There are several ways of attaching the boards, but I use the conventional 2 release method. The line from the rod is first connected to the side arm on the board with a tight holding snapper release. Then the line from the lure is connected to a pinch style release on the rear of the board. The rear release is the actuating point of a spring loaded flag that stands atop the board. A pull, which is adjustable, on the release will cause the flag to go down. This is a great help in helping to avoid dragging weeds or small fish around that would otherwise go unnoticed. With the board now attached, I simply place it in the water and start feeding it out under tension. The first board I’ll put out about 50 feet and then set the drag to the just holding point with the clicker on. This process is now repeated with a second board with a few slight changes. I’ll go with a 2 oz. weight to run a bit higher and use a purple colored Renowski. This second board will get fed out about half way to the first.

We’ve actually run three boards with no problems, but it takes some practice and quick maneuvering to avoid tangles when a big fish hits on the outside one. Assuming that we have three people aboard, I can still put out two more rigs. We’ll set up another dipsy diver inside the boards. This one I’ll set at left 2, which is about half of it’s maximum sideways setting. Because the diver goes down at a steep angle, plus the fact that the boards are well out to the side, there’s little chance of any interference. For a final rig, we’ll run a lead core rig out the back. The lead core, due to its large diameter, requires a large capacity reel like Bass Pros Gold Cup line-counter. Because the line is color coded in 10 yard increments, the line-counter is a nicety, but not necessary. The weight of this line causes it to go down approximately 6 feet for each color (or 10 yards) out. I have a 50 foot leader of fluorocarbon attached to 100 yards of lead core on my reels. I’ll snap another crawler harness onto this and feed back 60 yards or so of the lead core. This should put us in the 40 foot range. Like all the others, this rod is placed in a holder with the reel’s clicker on and the drag set to just hold.

As complicated as I’ve made this sound, this whole process can be accomplished in probably 20 minutes or so with practice. As I mentioned, I usually have one rig feeding out as I’m working on the next. Hopefully, while I’ve been busy rigging, my partner has been paying attention to our speed, depth and direction and letting me know of any changes. By now we should be in about 75 feet of water and we’ll start a slow zigzag pattern. This will cause the lures behind the boards to speed up and rise on the outside of a turn and slow down and drop on the inside of a turn. The other rigs will also be affected, but not nearly as much as the snap-weights behind the boards.

When the first hit comes, my partner hits a button on the GPS to mark our location and tells me the speed and depth he is reading. I make a note of the lure, device, running depth and location of the rod. After the fish is brought in and the rig is re-set, we’ll try to duplicate the scenario. If a second fish comes on the same rig, then I’ll start trying to match the setup with some of the other rigs.

I should probably touch on the actual retrieving of these big Erie eyes once you get one on. These are not your typical sluggish 18 to 20 inch fish. Many of the walleye we catch there run 10 pounds or more and a small one will still be over 5 pounds! Although they don’t run and jump like some gamefish, these heavyweights love to stall and shake that big head. Because we use a non-stretch line, I find it’s very important to keep the rod tip high and just stop reeling when that happens. The long rods we use are able to absorb those headshakes without pulling hooks free. As long as the fish is moving, a slow, steady retrieve will get them to netting range. We use a very large extendable net and rarely loose a fish once it’s in range.

Now that I’ve gotten myself excited, let me close by mentioning a few things about my beloved eastern basin. Like any fishery, it has it’s share of slow times but my first trip out has been embedded and keeps me going back. I had dreamt for years of that 10 pounder hanging on my wall. Well, after my first day on the water out there, the bar was raised. I caught three walleye over 10 pounds that day! The past few seasons have seen a drop in numbers of fish caught, but the size of the fish makes up for it! Feel free to post a comment if you have questions about either this article or this great fishery.

Good Fishing, Sluggo (Chris)

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