justtracytrolling

You can certainly catch eyes other ways than trolling, but I save that for night mostly.  Although I brought a spin rod and casted before morning trips and after evening trips when I was solo several times this summer/fall and caught em both ways in the same trip.  Even caught a couple on keitechs offshore in the morning when fish were pushing up bait.  Had a walleye blow up boat side yesterday morning trolling and couldn't do anything about it because i had nothing rigged even if I cranked a line in...graph showed a bunch more with it and I trolled by way under em...Ive caught em casting in the middle of the lake before tho...did it one morning with a tdd11 waiting for a tow with Johnny walleye and Kevin (lyke2fish) broke down after casting all night.  

Skaneatles is nice because there is no alewives so bass are on structure where they can be targeted easily.  On Otisco there definitely are some bass not offshore, but the biggest ones are and no end in sight to them pounding alewives.  

Today was no gimme!  Toughest fishing I've had perhaps all summer.  Got lines in downwind turned around to go back to the area I had good fish and had a double.  Landed a big bass and a decent eye and that was all the action.  Fished 7 hours after not a touch by any species.  Last night was a good wind direction for casting but really was too rough to fish properly and they certainly weren't chewing!  I've had my share of wind and waves but at least the wind blew the lake clean....and I had it to myself for a day n a half!  Nobody else that stupid, but I had to know....bet tomorrow is decent. 

John helped me find my son's first bow buck a bunch of years ago.  I still think of your dog and can still see her perk up when she winded the buck!

I'm using Denali Myriad walleye trolling rods and these are lightweight, graphite, and telescopic for storage.  I use most of the rods they make, but the 8'6" leadcore rods are my favorite.  They aren't the cheapest but these rods are worth the money!

On 10/2/2020 at 6:53 PM, lowjack12 said:

Those walleye are close to the rip rap rocks early in the morning work stick baits jerk baits
They even hit musky baits
For me some of the best shore fishing is coming

 

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The walleye we are trolling are nowhere near those rocks.  The walleye you are referring to have been in the weeds for roughly 6 weeks.  I did 5 solo the morning in question over 7 lbs trolling deep.  You guys know there are walleye all over the lake right?

Skaneatles is your best bet IMO for catchable smallmouth bass.  Otisco is fishing well for smallmouth right at the causeway, but most of them are still offshore on bait.  I caught some tanks Sunday down 35+ feet.  Last I knew Cayuga wasnt fishing well at all, but that was 2 weeks ago.  NYS bass federation finished up their season there and most boats couldn't get a limit and many didn't get a fish.

I run lcs across the board because I do a lot of long set backs off the riggers and want to be repeatable.  Also on my cores I often run 25-75 of backing out on the boards to adjust deeper with the same core or copper.  Doubtful that you need to be that precise with trout and salmon.

 maybe Kevin can comment but I doubt those are walleye...if you had a pic of them with imaging, especially side imaging I could tell.  2d is absolutely worthless to me....if you ever have seen a sunken mooring on 2d or anything suspending you would never trust it again.  They should be on the bottom and eating on the bottom not suspending up there.  I wouldn't even put a line down anywhere new till I found walleye.... could be so many things keeping you from getting bit.  Like for starters they can shut off anytime and you simply cannot catch em till they turn back on....like here the Larry is one tough walleye fishery and if it were easy they would be extinct as tasty as they are!!!  In August my boys were up fishing a big bass tournament and practicing and Anthony was fishing largemouths in 4 fow and got on a school of 8lb eyes in that 4 fow...they ate walleye every night... coincidentally I pulled a limit of eyes over 8lbs casting the same week here in 3 fow....temp 85!  I was hunting walleye in there they stumbled on em, but same result...water is 63 now and I can't hardly buy a casting fish but trolled 13 out of 14 yesterday all down over 30.  The one casting was on a keitech down at least 20 over 35-40.  

I have all tekota A's 300s thru 600s and couldn't be happier with them.  From young kids to senior citizens all of my customers have a much easier time with low profile and light weight.  The drag system is second to none.  Are they the most rugged and heavy duty?  Doubtful when you consider how light they are, but shimano has always stood behind their high end stuff and Shimano is all I use for bait casters (curado dcs), spinning reels(ci4+) and now the trolling reels.  The saltists are awesome  but Daiwa hasn't been as good to me...I have 3 Lexa lcs and 2 came with busted clickers straight from Daiwa which I still can't understand how they got shipped out like that!  Either reel will definitely make you happy!

I have had 4 of them and I haven't had the best luck with them, but I need a very fast charger and have stayed with them just because they have a 15 amp per bank model.  I've had enough with all of issues and intend to go with lithium ion next season and hopefully stop going through batteries and chargers.  My use is extreme and probably you will be very happy with any on board charger with out spending double for the minn Kota charger.

rainbow smelt....stop reading so much inaccurate material from the DEC!  Just because they say it doesn't make it true....

nice work!  Kudos to Kevin and prof t....it really rare to find help with walleye!   Everyone should be keeping the details you learn from others to yourself as it's not yours to give out openly unless you got it from an open post...private conversation is just that....or figure it out yourself....just my 2 cents.  Nice job on the post Roughrider!!!

I'm not closing up until I run outta customers or water!  I just did 4 more big ones and Im on to something big time!  Not to many guys make major changes when they are getting the consistent results I have been but when you put the time in to pattern a different level of walleye its surreal to actually put it together!  5-7 and nothing under 9!!!

I found something interesting and have been working on a new program with some hand painted lures I've been doctoring in my free time and while I'm fishing.  This morning I ran the new setups and finally got these fish to go very early.  Went 1-2 and lost the bigger fish before I could even work it....27" and 9lbs

I passed out all my core rods to a couple boats that morning and the only way you can put those rods on a board without catching is to cut the hooks off!  Even then those baits are hot enough and the cores are so dialed would not  shock me if I landed a fish or two with out a hook.  I know the rods and drags are forgiving enough!  I had 8 core setups and 2 copper setups to fish 7.5 feet of column leading up to my birthday fishing marathon.  Each core is less than a foot deeper than the previous and only 4' longer in length.  I wanted to be able to see just exactly how much column I have to work with day to day.  That way when I make adjustments during a season where the bite isn't great I know just how accurate I'll need to be.  Let's just say 2 weeks of testing showed the window for active fish can be conceivably between cores cut every half color (15')  That doesn't mean you wouldn't catch a fish I'm just saying in order to get a rod to fire more than once and to notice any real action you need the cores cut every quarter color (7.5').  On the best days I  had 5-6 of column and on the worst days less than 2 feet and it was tough to get 2 different rods to fire without shortening a core by clipping on a bobber or by adding 5- 10 feet of braid after the core before the board. So on my birthday I had em all dialed so close that I knew I could get both board rods and my hot core rigger all going and the bite was wide open.  The next morning I was with Gary and another seasonal camper and every single rod in my 9 rod spread fired with an eye at least once.  I had em so bunched up to show those guys exactly how good the bite really is that I was a nightmare turning and working fish around the spread.  Fun few days but I'm never gonna troll 9 lines so close together because it was impossible not to tangle just turning easy and you couldn't land a fish without catching another line.  Tomorrow I'm back after some tigers and that bite is literally the best it's ever been for deep trolling and bigger fish.  Of course I probably jinxed myself!

lake laid down some and bite started as you left....bout 1130

18 hours ago, whaler1 said:

Any action tonight Justin?


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Miss em and I went out casting and it was just too flat...Jeff had one good bite and now he knows exactly what the bite is like and I'll bet next time he doesn't miss em!  Probably only had 15-30 minutes of action around us  and we quit early.  Probably have a pick tonight if it doesn't lay right down. 

4 hours ago, Jomat said:

3 color leadcore on a downrigger?....did I read that right?

if you want to catch ball shy big walleye you need some tools!  You don't wanna run my long leaders unless you know what you are doing...200' just about with core and leader... double digits again.... nothing too crazy 7 and an 8 lber...rigged up some copper last night and lengthened my cores, got a nap and the copper was the best followed by my 3 color rigger.  Wind wasn't too bad but the catfish, white perch, bass, and little 3-4 lb walleye were really a problem keeping lines in so we could catch decent walleye.  1 triple and a couple doubles... 

I definitely shouldn't be posting this but...

I slept in this morning and got up at 530 hit the water by 6.  Had a fine time watching the sun come up.  finally to where I did a bunch yesterday and bang I'm tripled!  Get the one line back out while landing and releasing the triple. laying the second line and it goes off in my hand.  I come right and rigger goes off with a 3 color core.  This has been an unreal setup taking 2 10's and a couple 9s in 3+ weeks.  This walleye had been hooked a couple times I'm certain because it would pull drag then charge the boat, then scream sideways and back to the bottom.  Fish was barely hooked but my Denali 8'6" leadcore rod paired with a tekota A 400 did their jobs and I slipped my net under another 28+ 9+# beautiful eye!  Passed off my hottest setups to Gary and Terri and led them back thru em...Finished 7-7 and a big catfish.  I'm ready for bbq bacon wrapped walleye!  I'm gonna just troll around my big fish setup till dark and then cast tonight!  I'm looking for another actual 10lber for Kevin to mount to put in my Customer RV and  1 for the store... might be this one!

On 9/10/2020 at 7:18 AM, lyk2fish said:

Thanks bro for the kind words. Everyone on that list you referenced has one thing in common, we’re all hard core fisherman that put in hours and hours to figure out how to be better. Through trial and tribulations we figure it out not because we’re experts but because we are relentless at wanting to be successful at this game we play............by he way is that the fish I’m gonna be working on.....it’s a beauty with an awesome story!

Kevin,

No the fish you are gonna mount came off my boat.  10lber hit all three of my riggers then wrapped up on a sunken mooring.  Broke off 2 of the rods and landed on the third.  Lost 2 whole leadcore setups on the same mooring today

Most importantly I had a ton of direct and indirect help from other great anglers and great walleye anglers.  I'm gonna forget someone, but here goes.  Miss em taught me the basis of everything I know about fishing spoons and the thermocline.  Pete Rajner taught me about feeding baits versus reaction baits and using clip weights more and that is how I came up with how I defeat the weeds and a few other things.  Bulletny taught me about fish way out of temp and keeping the fish honest.  Lyke2fish has given me many ideas and been someone I bounce ideas off as well as being the best all around troller and stick I've ever met, Landshark and walleye magic taught me a lot about staying up high when I know the fish aren't for certain applications as well as someone to talk to, I've read all of Kevin leggs posts he ever wrote and have read between the lines and asked the right questions, my buddy Randy is a magician with a stick bait in the dark,  Vince Pierleoni has given me a few pieces of advice that really hit home about the business that gave me the push I needed, and the list goes on.  Without seeing what was possible and having fresh ideas I would have been too old or dead before I got where I am.  BTW I met all but one of those people thru this forum.  Perhaps just living next to the boat launch and seeing what gets caught when and with what equipment has told me alot about what goes on here.  I'm always available to help others and along with giving answers a lot of questions tell me more than anyone knows.  It's all about putting every single piece of info you can get into your walleye knowledge and walleye tool bag.  Always assuming it can be done better and that you are missing something important.  As soon as you think you have it all figured out you are all done learning.  I figured something out recently that has bothered me since the full lake study in 2013 when I fished the same hours as the shocking and got totally different results than the shocking.  The answer was a hatch and the wind direction at the time.  When I figured it out I wasn't even trying to solve that problem I was just curious about something Ive seen many times but never tried to figure out because I didn't know I needed to... which is how most things are figured out... by chance.  if a flood didn't shut down the entire fishery for the month of July I think I'd still believe there is no reproduction.... that happened to be the only year since I've been here we didn't receive stocking so it was the only year I could prove it without access to Tunison labs to have walleye tested.  I asked for that and offered to pay for the tests and was denied by the DEC in a prior year.   All I'm saying is I didn't figure out much all by myself and I've been way wrong far more than right along the way.  I'd like to think I've helped those guys as well just as much, and if I didn't I definitely have helped tons of other anglers.

Opinions vary...my wife hasn't hardly seen me in a month and wouldn't agree with you I'm pretty sure!  Nothing amazing here... I just want it more than anyone else and I don't get outworked....do anything 80-100 hours a week and its hard not to learn something... even a blind squirrel will find a nut occasionally!

Thanks for the kind words, but you guys are the ones putting the time in...I'm here to help but anyone wanting help needs to make arrangements to see me in person or book a trip if you want to actually understand what's going on...  

There are plenty of precision trolling situations and in those the depth of your rigger baits is one of the easiest to figure out.  find somewhere with a fairly even bottom that's approximately the depth you want to fish and lower the ball slowly at speed till it hits bottom and bingo now you know.. same thing is easily done with leadcore copper etc.  If this idea scares you then you shouldn't bother learning to troll structure and if you aren't trolling structure it probably doesn't matter exactly how deep you are....just saying!  Personally I keep my transducer parallel to the water line and don't tilt it back to see the rigger balls....I know where they are!