A trip to walleye’s world

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/10/2010 (5576 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Do fish become conditioned to certain types of baits and presentations? It’s an interesting question and the answer varies greatly, depending on the amount of fishing pressure on a certain body of water. Take Tobin Lake, Sask., for instance.

Every year, friend Jim Price and I head up there to visit a group of friends and put in some hours hunting for trophy walleye. Timing is critical as large numbers of extremely big walleye congregate in the river, attracted by forage and current flow. Now Tobin is well known to us; in fact, I have been fishing it since 1979. I have seen the fishery change over time, with the fish harder to catch on a consistent basis. On last year’s adventure, Jim and I decided to head up with an open mind and a number of presentation options thought through.

When fishing Tobin Lake, we have two location options. One is out on the main body of the reservoir itself where lake walleye hold along sharp drop-offs next to large flats in search of ciscoes and other forage that can be ambushed along the edge of the old river channel. This option is weather-dependent — a big wind makes it impossible control the boat well enough to follow the sharp edges of the drop. After a slow first day on the main lake, we moved back into the river itself. On the first part of the day, we decided to run bottom bouncers and spinners, a throwback to the early days of fishing this particular body of water. In 1989, my partner and I won the Premiers Cup tournament using bottom bouncers and big blades running the boat with current. Talk about good memories; I hooked up with the first seven walleyes caught that day using exactly the same technique. In fact, it turned out to be an awesome day with more that 40 walleyes caught as we found aggressive fish everywhere.

Later that day we made an adjustment that capped things off. I had made sure to pack some three-way swivels and floating crankbaits.

This was a switchover from straight power trolling into the current using deep divers and leadcore or Fireline. Man, talk about success! On our first pass with Berkley Frenzy Minnow Baits, we had nine fish, the biggest 10 pounds!

The first time I saw this presentation in action was more than 20 years ago when I was fishing with Al Lindner on the Winnipeg River in Ontario. It was April and the previous day Al and I had jigged up a bunch of big walleye using heavy jigs and large live minnows. Al bet me that night at the hotel he would catch more walleye than I the next day using the three-way swivel setup and floating Number Thirteen Rapala’s than I and a friend would using jigs and minnows.

As it turns out, not only did he beat us, he annihilated us, catching five walleye to our one, a valuable lesson that I have kept with me over the years.

Better yet! Over the next couple of days we switched over to 1º-ounce bottom bouncers instead of the three-way swivel setup. This allowed us to contour-troll the edges of the channel a little better. Not only that, we only had to let out 41 feet of line to get our baits were we wanted them in 25 feet of water. Since we were fishing three out of a boat and a lot of that was at night, lure control became critical, both to catch fish and reduce frustration of wrapped lines.

Over most of our trolling runs, our spinners and crankbaits were above bottom, anywhere from one to eight feet of water, depending on time of day and fish activity level. The bottom bouncer/crankbait setup has tremendous application for river fishing and contour trolling. It also gives you a chance to once again use those crankbaits that had been sitting in your basement for eons.

Give it a try. You will not be disappointed.

ANGLER’S NOTES: Walleye fishing at Pine Falls is still very good. Many of the other rivers in Manitoba are producing fish as well, like the West Waterhen. Muskie anglers have been out in full force on the Lake of the Woods. Some fish have been caught, but nice weather has slowed the bite somewhat.

dlamont@mymts.net