| I got a little reminder about experimenting last week | | | | within minutes she had a walleye. I chalked it up to |
| when my wife and I hit a local lake to test the | | | | luck, but a couple more passes with no bites for me |
| walleye action. Earlier in the week my son and I had | | | | and several for her got me wondering. After she |
| fished league using lindy rigs and leeches. Our setup | | | | boated her second walleye I chopped my snell in half. |
| was comprised of a six foot leader with a plain red | | | | I immediately started getting action. The fish were |
| hook tipped with a nice big leech. The idea was to | | | | biting very light that night, so they needed to be fed |
| move very slowly using the electric trolling motor to | | | | a little line after the first tap. After a couple more |
| let the leech swim around. We were lucky enough to | | | | passes I was able to add two more fish to the live |
| boat one nice 22" fish using this setup, but did not | | | | well. |
| catch another walleye that night with this setup. You | | | | We had drawn the attention of a couple of other |
| can read that blog posting for the rest of the story, | | | | boats, and soon had to start dodging between them |
| but we switched to other baits, basically giving up on | | | | to follow our path, so we decided to call it a night. |
| the rig for the night. | | | | We had that spot in our pockets, so we were happy |
| So my wife and I headed to another lake the next | | | | with a few nice walleyes for the freezer. The most |
| night and I figured we would try the same thing. | | | | important lesson of the night was the reminder that |
| There was a nice big sunken rock pile that had been | | | | if what you are doing is not working, you should not |
| producing fish for a few days so we started there, | | | | be afraid to change what you are doing. |
| moving slowly from 20 feet back in to 8 or 9 feet | | | | Experimenting with something as simple as changing |
| marking fish the whole time, but not getting any | | | | the length of your snell can make a world of |
| bites. There were several other boats on the same | | | | difference. Because we were in such shallow water it |
| structure doing just as poor. Then my wife | | | | was difficult to know where the fish were holding, |
| mentioned that she really didn't like the long snell. She | | | | but it would be logical to assume these fish were |
| was used to fishing with a much shorter snell when | | | | holding tight to the bottom and wanted something a |
| using lindy rigs. So just for the heck of it, I cut her | | | | bit closer before they would attack. A shorter snell |
| snell in half. We moved to the south end of the lake | | | | and still slow presentation (.8 miles per hour generally) |
| and started working the edge of a nice flat and | | | | did the trick that night. |