|
|
Member
Posts: 2680
Location: Essexville, MI./Saginaw Bay. | This topic and my answer to it taken from another board. Capt. Dan.
The last year or two I have started exprimenting with faster trolling speeds on both winnebago and green bay all year long. Sometimes upwards of 4 mph. I am thinking that this has been succesful for me for a few reasons. 1-i am covering more water and presenting my bait to more fish. 2- when I get a few fish these fish are generally very active since they are willing to eat a bait cruzin at 3 or 4 mph. 3- Its a reaction strike and the fish thinks that it has to eat that bait now or it will lose its oppertunity to eat. I would appreciate anybodys thoughts or opinions on this subject.
Brad Korth
Brad.
In the summers of 2000/2001, during what was considered two bad year class's of fish for us on Saginaw Bay, I was having what was considered by many at my Marina as a couple of very lucky seasons. Just four pictures of the many I have is posted below, with one of them being a double 6 man charter and the most fish I ever kept (57) in one day. Forgive the quality as they were scanned. My charter catches those summers averaged 17 fish per trip and many were real dandys. My crankbaits of choice back then were 1/4 ounce tots in a variety of colors. But my fellow marina mates thought I was holding back key information of some type. But I was (I thought) sharing everything I was doing, much like I do here daily.
In the fall of 1999 I bought a new LMS 350 "A" Fish Finder and a new Raymarine GPS for my boat. I liked the way I could enlarge the speed, temp and other things I wanted to see from anywhere on the boat on the graph, while enjoying the excellent, large, refined depths and contour views of the Bay that the Raymarine and the C-Nav/chip/map/whatever feature gave me in Plotter mode.
So one day my bud asks if he can fallows me out to see what I'm doing different. Sure I said just hang back behind me out of the way some. I give him my trolling speed and we start fishing. Long story short I called him twice on the radio because he was hanging so far back we alomost lost each other several times. And all this time I was pulling fish while he was only getting one here and there. He finally pulled lines, caught up with me and started running even with me with his big motor. He calls me on the radio and says do you know how fast your trolling? I say ya, right now about 1.8MPH. B.S. he says, look at your GPS speed. Well, that was never easy on the Raymarine, as it was so tiny I had to squint to see it. It said 3.5MPH. :gasp: And there were days I'd kick up the graph speed read out to 2.2 before the fish would go. That must have been approaching Marlin Trolling speeds on the cranks. Yet for some reason I never noticed.
That same year I caught a walleye that was tagged in Lake Erie, in the relativley shallow waters I was having all this "luck" in, which would be considered the extreme S.E. corner of Saginaw Bay. Then almost a year later, I read in our DNR's Fall Trawlings Survey that our waters attracted a bunch of Lake Erie and Lake St.Claire walleyes those 2 summers because of our unusual abundance of baitfish during those 2 seasons. So both the competition for, and the feeding frenzys created because of these added new, hungry aggressive arrivals, could do nothing but reinforce the speed troll factor. 
Attachments
----------------
 Image01_007_sized.jpg (157KB - 105 downloads)
Image01_014.jpg (43KB - 104 downloads)
Image03_011.jpg (45KB - 93 downloads)
Image05.jpg (22KB - 97 downloads)
|
|
| |
|
| You stumbled onto a pattern that held up for days and was repeated the following year. Fast trolling speeds only work when the fish are "very" active or hungry. When they are inactive, a person has to slow down to improve the catch. How fast you slow down depends on a lot of factors.
Only a select, few, fishermen understand the mood of the walleye in a body of water, to know when to speed up and slow down thoughout the day, making it more productive. |
|
| |
|
Member
Posts: 625
Location: LaCrosse, WI | I disagree that fast trolling speeds only work when fish are very active. I have caught fish trolling cranks over 3 mph, when others were not catching fish at all. I truely believe that there is a reaction bite.
Think of it this way, if a crank goes by twice as fast, the fish only has 1/2 the time to look at it and decide if they want to bite it or not. This can work against you as well, when the fish seem to follow cranks for long periods of time. I find that when speed trolling, putting the motor into nuetral and then taking back off can often trigger strikes.
Speed trolling is not always the answer but it does have it's time and place. |
|
| |
|
Member
Posts: 96
Location: DeForest, WI | I agree with GNWC.
You have to be able to think out of the box.
I won't go into any rational, but I will say allot of people wouldn't think of doing this. And those people (guides included) may not catch a fish on the same day you are running faster speeds and limiting out. |
|
| |
|
Member
Posts: 2680
Location: Essexville, MI./Saginaw Bay. | I'm thinking the "reaction strike" had a lot to do with my success during those 2 years. All these fish had heavy layers of fat on them during that time and with the over abundance of baitfish during those 2 summers, the walleyes could forage quit easily, efficiently and at their own leisure. This would shorten their aggressive feeding windows and your opportunity to catch them, especially if you were trolling at a slow speed making your own offering look the same as all the other real ones, during times when they were not actively feeding. So I visualize all these fish just swimming slowly around fallowing and staying near their prey until that undisclosed feeding time arrived. Then here comes this school of hyper minnows pushing or sparking their feeding buttons. 
Edited by walleye express 4/29/2008 10:07 AM
|
|
| |
|
Member
Posts: 3899
| 2002 RCL Championship the second. I was with Pat Slater. We trolled pretty fast in Buffalo Slough all day. Maybe went 2-2.5 mph. Caught 4 nice fish all day. Lost one. 1/2 hour to go, along comes Tom Keenan about 3-3.5 MPH at least. Passed us like we were standing still! We watched him catch 3 in about 10 minutes! Those fish were negatinve all day, due to about 80 boats hovering over them all day. Only about 3 of us were trolling, and we didn't catch any when we were below 2 MPH. |
|
| |
|
Member
Posts: 625
Location: LaCrosse, WI | My starting speed in the summer on the Mississippi is usually 2.2 or better. I've caught fish around 4mph on several occaisions. To me the biggest benefit is the amount of water I cover compared to trolling 1 mph.
There's been a lot of times when the biggest fish I caught trolling all year (including spring) are caught going more than 3 mph. Those fish get big for a reason, chances are they haven't been caught before, or not very many times.
I think they don't have the time to decide if the passing bait looks real or not, they either hit it or they don't. I've pulled jigs at over 2mph and caught fish too, same theory. |
|
| |
|
Member
Posts: 2393
Location: Waukesha Wisconsin | Speed Kills ............... and catches fish too. I totally agree with GNWC and the Captain. |
|
| |
|
| It's interesting to read about confidence in a fishing pattern. I suppose if the fast trolling speeds worked consistently, Walleye Express would be using it all of the time, fishing for money. I'm sure Walleye Express knows, from experience, when to change speed, when trolling.
The tournament situation; it looks like the bite kicked in when they caught the 3 fish very quickly, or they chose the right bait. Also, there will always be a few hungry fish in the school when the bite goes away, that can be caught while power trolling.
Faster trolling speeds have their place when the feed bag is on, but when they go inactive, IMO, there are better approaches to filling the livewell. If power trolling works for you, stay with it.
|
|
| |
|
Member
Posts: 174
| What are the best baits to run without blowing out?
thanks
Randy |
|
| |
|
Member
Posts: 625
Location: LaCrosse, WI | I can tell you which ones are not the best. Jointed shad raps blow out pretty bad.
I actually try to tune my cranks at higher speeds because it actually translates into a better tuned crank at all speeds. Regular Shad Raps and flicker shads run pretty well at high speeds. Wally divers are hit and miss.
Fat bass style baits tend to run decent at higher speeds too. Hot N Tots/ and the newer daves versions actually run pretty well at 3+ mph too. |
|
| |
|
Member
Posts: 2680
Location: Essexville, MI./Saginaw Bay. | In the Tot family, Rattlte Tot's win hands down. Fallowed closely by flat warts, wiggle warts, thunder sticks and the rest of that family fallowing closely behind. I was at the outer extreme with those 1/4 ouncers, running them as fast as I was those 2 seasons. And I cannot say I have ran them that fast ever since. Dave's Ka'Boom lures are also very well designed and as stable as they come for high speeds.
Edited by walleye express 4/30/2008 1:36 PM
|
|
| |
|
Member
Posts: 96
Location: DeForest, WI | W.E.
Your explanation of specific baits that run well at high speeds sounds like a Harry Potter reference... haha
the only thing missing was hogwarts..
Edited by BOXMAN 4/30/2008 5:15 PM
|
|
| |
|
Member
Posts: 181
Location: Manawa Wiscowsin | I've used speed trolling for many years with good success most of the time. I admit that there are times when speed doesn't work and slow is the ticket. I like the L&S Mirrolure jointed crankbaits for trolling faster speeds and have used them on Winnebago for trolling since 1964. A few years ago during a Winnebago Walleyes website tournament I was fishing with Viking. We didn't do much good until the end of the day when I broke from the excepted pattern and trolled Mirrolures fast, about 6 feet down in 19 feet of water. We didn't place but at least we ended up with some nice fish. The Mirrolures don't have the best action until you get up over 1.5 mph. Another old bait that has worked for me are the Heddon River Runts. The floating (floater/diver) is my favorite but the other models also work well. You have to use an inline weight to get floating model down more than a couple of feet but they have really good action at all speeds. Mirrolures are still available at mirrolure.com but you have to go to eBay etc to find the River Runts.
Attachments
----------------
nighteye1.jpg (159KB - 88 downloads)
|
|
| |
