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Walleye fishing Lake Erie east end.


Shade

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We are moving our boat from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie. Due to our work schedules we do not get enough time to fish Ontario. Our boat is rigged with all the latest gear,( 3 downriggers, outriggers, Planner boards, electronics).

We have the right stuff just need some basic information.

 

I have doing some research and I see articles that show trolling speeds from .8mph - 3.5mph.

My questions are:

What speeds do you run worm harnesses vs. stick baits ( deep diver/shallow runners)?

I have wire, lead core and mono rigs. When running off the boards how far back do you run your mono and lead? How long a leader do you fun from Dipsy to the bait? How much line do set out from rigger ball?

 

I also saw  articles on running 3 way swivels rigged with flutter spoon and stick bait again there must be a speed window when running this rig. How long a leader do you run off the two sides of the swivel to the bait?

 

I am not looking for where to go but some help full information on set ups and speeds. Again we have equipment to help find the fish.

Any help or suggestions would greatly appreciated.

 

Thank you,

Shade (Howie)

Boat Name - Hannah Christine

 

 

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Water temperature is key to fishing walleye in Lake Erie. From 53 degrees to 78 degrees you move from near shore and the eastern to deeper water past west of the cattaraugis creek

Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United mobile app

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Shade.. Welcome to the eastern basin! All of your Ontario gear will work fine there, but if you're a salmon troller you'll have to force yourself to slow down. I usually run my harnesses and stickbaits between 1.2 to 2.0.. very seldom faster. My baits are 8 feet behind my dipsies.. but if you run slide divers you can go further. I've tried really long leads off the downriggers, but they just don't seem to produce as well as dipsies or boards with leadcore or weights. I think walleyes are just ball-shy. Anyway.. feel free to PM me if you have questions about launches or places to stay. Good Fishing, Sluggo (Chris)

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So what I see through research and comments is trolling is either running planner boards, in-line boards, dipsys'  down the shoot with lead core. Downriggers are not the choice. I know that water temp is a key and I also see that to get your baits where walleye are staged you use snap weights. Good stuff but I still want to see how and success trolling with a flutter spoon and a stick bait on a 3 way swivel.

Howie

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So what I see through research and comments is trolling is either running planner boards, in-line boards, dipsys'  down the shoot with lead core. Downriggers are not the choice. I know that water temp is a key and I also see that to get your baits where walleye are staged you use snap weights. Good stuff but I still want to see how and success trolling with a flutter spoon and a stick bait on a 3 way swivel.

Howie

Shade that rig is good behind a dipsy but it can be a tangled mess at times . I run riggers with great success and dipsys out to sides also boards I stack my program for coverage and effectiveness . Each day a little different. Torpedo is a great way to go for a weight set up. Even better than a dipsy imo. Try to get over to Nick's on Kenmore. He is getting a good shipment of blades and harnesses in anyday always has great blades in stock usually also he is tournament fishermen not afraid to show you what's hot that he uses himself. I'll show ya my choices abd where i order from.

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O. And I only run shallow divers. Always off cores, divers ect. And same speed for both because I always run them together in the spread and I tend to only run sticks on long cores anything over 5 colors because it's a pain in the rear constantly checking meat on the harnesses when there out that far.

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With huge smelt numbers this year expect the big girls to be on the bottom.  Keeping one worm harness line on a rigger just off bottom is always a good idea. 

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We did great off riggers last year, mostly pulling harnesses.  Cores/coppers were also good.  Dipseys were hit and miss for us.  We may have to go with longer leads.  You're probably going to want to troll slower than 2mph when dragging harnesses, but if you want to go with a dipsey/rigger program, don't be afraid to get up to 3mph pulling sticks.  This CAN be effective when the water warms up (73+).  Don't be afraid to use coppers over cores either.  out 150 and 200' were on fire last year.  Did better on those than most of our cores combined.

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Shade:

Welcome to Lake Erie.   Everyone has their favorite things to run, which you can tell just from these

posts.   Although I do run worms on occassion, its more often sticks and spoons.

 

We catch fish on riggers, and often they are the biggest of the day.   I like to run smaller spoons off

those, like the WD's from Dreamweaver, but have also had luck with small chattersticks and regular

renoskys.   About 45 feet seems good.

 

We ran a lot of core last year...4 and 5 early when we were in tighter, and 6, 7 later on off the boards.

Generally run a 10 down the chute...sometimes clean, sometimes with extra weight.

 

Off the side, I like slide divers.   Run the lures about 50 feet off the diver.

 

Usually in the 1.7 range on downspeed.

 

One thing I have found, the wider spoons like the Fishlanders or NK28's don't seem to work as well

here.   We have had much better success with super slims and yecks.   And they match up with the bait size too.

 

Is that your boat at Chadwick Bay Marina?

 

John

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Hi John,

 

No, she is still at the Oak. Still looking to get her moved.

Thanks for the information. I like wide spreads to cover more water with boards, dipsyies, one down the shoot and riggers. I am a little surprised, that outside of worm harnesses no one runs flashers. I like hooking a flasher to my rigger ball just as an attractor. We are looking to do a couple charters just to see tactics right on the water. I may check out your website.

Thanks,

Shade

Edited by Shade
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  • 4 weeks later...

We fish out of Chadwick bay don't be afraid to troll in the top 20 feet of water especially late spring early summer. Jets and Short cores off the boards with both sticks and harnesses. The fishing was good to the east this year, but setting up on the stretch of water with all that structure to the west is never a bad idea. 1.8 mph is a pretty consistent speed for us. The one thing I have learned is run the leaders behind the jets and dipsey as far back as you can handle. Late in the tear riggers took a lot of fish for us especially fluttering a spoon off the rigger. Completely agree with Times Two on spoon selection. DW SS (watermellon copper).

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