Need help

[Thatguy]

Ok so I went out of Geneva state park today got on the lake around 5:30. Went NW to 60 fow and trolled East 4 #1 dipseys with spoons... 2 inside dipseys set at a 1 setting and the other 2 set at 3 setting anywhere from 65-125 back I tried and I couldn’t get anything to hit until the last 10 minutes I caught a 23” but probably by accident lol! Any advice would be appreciated at this point thanks..

[Chairmaker]

All I can do is let you know what’s working for me.
Working water anywhere form 56 to 68 feet
They moved around yesterday
outside Dipsy set at 3......110 deep
inside Dipsy set at 1.......77 deep
small spoons
pink, purple, green
two 40 jets
one back 140......small spoon
one back 100.....blue and chrome med bandit
2.7 to 3.0 mph
lots of fish to be caught this summer, just keep at it till you find out what works best for you
gotta put in some time
good luck

[Thatguy]

Thanks for the reply I’ll take that advice with me on the next trip to the lake!

[duckmanlou]

We were out all weekend (starting on Saturday the 20th and Sunday). Also Monday evening (4pm). Limits every time.

You ready?

1. Calibration. Make sure your reels are calibrated. 100ft on your counter HAS to be 100ft when you walk it out. If you are reading 101 on you counter, you don’t have enough line on your spool and you need to add roughly 30ft of line. If you are reading 99 on counter you have too much line on your reel and need to take off 30ft. We run 30lb vicious braid. It has a small diameter and cuts through the water more efficiently than other brands. So when I tell you my numbers, if you have a different brand, the depths won’t be the same. They will be close but not exact.

2. Leader material. 20lb seaguar sts salmon leader material. You can get it at Karrans shop in Geneva on rt 84. Actually you can get everything we use at Vera and Mark’s place. Early season, if we are trolling small spoons on tru-trips, your leader length should be roughly 8ft long. Later in the season when we start pulling the bigger spoons our leaders are shorter, ~4-5ft long. Reason being, long leaders=slower action. Short leaders=quick action. Pay attention to what the walleye are spitting up when you bring them in, match your spoon size with the size of the food. That will give you a good indication as to what size spoon and what length leader to use.

With Dipsys, we use the #1 with the ring. The leader behind your dipsy, no matter what time of season, needs to be 12ft long at minimum. This gets weird if you have to net by yourself, so always take a buddy lol! We handline the fish into the net, once we get to the dipsy. We will either pull a spoon with the dipsy or a short bill storm thunder stick.

With boards and bandits, our leaders are 8ft long.

3. Speed. Get a fish hawk lol. Some days the boat is doing 4mph and the probe is doing 2.5. Other days the boat will be doing 1.5 and the probe is doing 2.3. If you can’t get a fish hawk, just continually play with your speed until you start catching. Then once you make a turn, start over. The underwater current is different depending on the direction you are trolling. Most days, fluctuation in speed is good. You want to constantly slow down and speed up to trigger strikes. A lot of times we will do a soft S pattern to help fluctuate speed. And some days, the walleye only want a certain degree presentation. Such as this weekend, north troll was what they preferred. South troll we maybe caught 4 or 5. All the rest came on the north troll. We never went east or west, didn’t need too.

Once you have those 3 things locked down. Now you have to find the fish, target the actively feeding fish (not always on fish finder), and find a color that is working.

Here was our program everyday from Saturday through Monday.

Started on the 58 north line (~60 FOW) in front of the mansion in Madison. Trolled north only on Sunday and Monday. Saturday we turned south around the 59.5 but realized they didn’t like a south troll so we turned her back north.

Speed- 2.2-2.8 on fishhawk. Anywhere from 2.4-3.5 speed over ground. Soft S pattern was needed especially when the lake was flat.

Boards- We run big boards. We can get up to 8 lines on a board if needed.
One side of the boat had Bandits. We started them at 70 ft back in the morning and then went to 125 ft back when they stopped hitting the 70 ft leads. On Monday afternoon at 4pm, we just immediately went to 125 ft back and stayed there.
The other side of the boat ran 40 tru-trips with BIG stinger spoons (Pooh bear and super woman were the best on the boards) 55-60 ft back in morning and then 100 ft back once they started to slow down.

Dipsys- #1 with ring. Big stinger spoons (cat-dog and mixed veggies). We run 4 Dipsys only. Each side of the boat has a #1 setting and a #3 setting. When we set up in the morning, the leads are different on each side of the boat.

Starboard-
(morning) #1 at 55 back and #3 at 75 back.
(Once slowed) #1 at 75 back and #3 at 109 back.

Port-
(morning) #1 at 40 back and #3 at 60 back.
(Once slowed) #1 at 75 back and #3 at 109 back.

Both sides of the boat caught fish in the morning otherwise we would have changed to slow side to what was catching fish.

I know it’s a lot. If you have any other questions please feel free to ask. I have no issues sharing information, there are more than enough walleye lol.

As a bonus, we caught 5 steelies on the #3 dipsy at 39 back lol. I accidentally forgot to continue letting out a dipsy after netting a fish and the folks we took out wanted to catch some more so I kept running it at 39 ft back for a while until they all caught one lol.