question for wordly traveler

[wilson]

what is the best gear and lures for walleye lake in beginning of july
for both walleye and pike Thanks for the help

[Walleye Wacker]

Wilson, You will probably be Walleye fishing with jigs tipped with either Minnows or Leechs while backtrooling with your boat. Back trool slow and work the jig with NO SLACK so you can feel the bite. Keep moving the jig and pause it on the bottom once it reachs bottom lift it dont jerk . When you lift it you may feel subtle weight ...that will be Mr. Walleye.. You should always use the lightest jig that will reach the bottom . This of course allows the best "feel" of the bite. I like for jigging a 6ft soft tip rod with good backbone for hooksets. I use 8lb Stren Magnathin on a spinning reel that is small enough to hold 50 to 75 yds. Good jig colors are white, orange,yellow and charteruse. During that time of the year we will troll with crankbaits around likely looking structure trying to locate schools of Walleye. Once we pick up a couple we stop and jig fish. We like to troll in 8 to 15 foot depths and use crankbaits that will reach bottom. Rapala makes some great variable depth crankbaits and I like Fire Tiger,Perch,Gold,Blue and silver any combos of these colors also work well.If you have any creek mouths or falls that have moving water they can be Walleye Heaven for casting jigs or just drifting.....The Pike seem to be weed oriented that time of year. Fish the weed beds (underwater cabbage) with bright colored spinner baits 1/2 or 3/4 oz in clear water use willow blades dingy water use colorado blades. Johnson Silver Minnow with trailer works well also. I like 7 1/2 ft med casting rod with 17 lb limp line for easy casting.Dont forget some 8" steel leaders for the Toothy Pike. Sometimes casting windy points or trolling windy points with a Daredevle or other flashy spoon or deep diveing large Rapalas will give up a Mr Toothy......Good Luck....catch and release.

What about the beginning of june? Will the pike be in transition from shallow to deep? I bet the walleyes will be in about 8'to 16' of water!

[fishmaster]

Another added tip that really works is try putting a half chunck of worm on that crankbait you will be surprised at the results.
Tried this a few years back and it was a killer.

[Walleye Wacker]

USA 3...I think you are right ...early June is a transistion time for the Pike and the Walleye can be at spawn or post spawn. Walleye in transistion are normally caught on main lake structure close to spawning area. Water can be 5 to 20 feet. I have always had the best luck catching post spawn Walleyes with rough water and high wind. It seems to revitalize their appetites.

Wilson,
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you--we're leaving for Canada tommorow and I've been madly running around buying last minute things.

We always went to Walleye lake in late May, so the walleyes were in post-spawn mode, as opposed to summer mode. The advice from all of the other posts is right on target: 1/4 oz jigs in orange, chartreuse and bright pink, tipped with minnows. Randy will buy the minnows for you and have them ready at the dock; alternatively, you can save yourself a few bucks and get them from Sunset Bait just as you come into Kenora (it'll be on the left hand side when you come from the east). You can place the order the afternoon you come into town, for pickup (at the bait shop) the following morning. Between the 6 of us, we'd go through 50 to 60 dozen on a 4 day trip. Randy always claimed that minnows were all you needed, and in general, since we caught all we wanted, we never experimented with leeches or crawlers.

For pike, the biggies will be deep (I'll talk about the lake shortly); you can catch plenty of 24-27" in the weeds. Spoons and rapalas of various types (Husky Jerks worked great, but we got tired of pulling the trebles out of the fish; shad raps; etc...). Colors: whatever suits your fancy. One year it was bright red (I had the monopoly on that color and cleaned up), the next year it was silver blue (and I got skunked). Bring several types of weedless spoons as well. To catch the deeper ones, you can try big jigs tipped with a lengthy piece of plastic bounced off the dropoff, or deep trolling of the above mentioned shallow lures. They're a bit tougher to catch.

Randy will provide you with a fool proof map of the lake. He has all of the walleye holes marked, and they worked. If one hole wasn't productive, we'd simply move to the next one. It really was that simple. We did find other spots that weren't on his map that were very productive also. He doesn't have a marked map of Little Walleye lake, so on that one, we were on our own. We generally went there for a change of pace, mostly pike fishing. I can scan in a map and send it to you if you want, but will not be able to get it to you for a couple of weeks. Randy will probably send you one if you send him an e-mail asking for it (his wife handles all of the e-mail traffic).

The lake itself has a max depth of 28 feet. All of the walleye holes were in the 8 to 15 feet range.

Let me know if you have any other questions (but I probably won't get an answer back for a couple of weeks--I have a 6 day fishing trip to Canada, then a 4 trip to Jackson Hole for a wedding). I hope it warms up a bit! We're glad to get in (with this late ice out, it's been dicey), but now we want some warmth to get the fish more active. Good luck on your trip. Terry