BWCA Leader? Colors? Other rigging tips for a newbie? Boundary Waters Fishing Forum
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thegildedgopher
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06/18/2018 09:03AM   (Thread Older Than 3 Years)
Making my first trip up "near" the BWCA tomorrow with my kid. Very excited! We'll be fishing West Bearskin, Hungry Jack, and Mayhew. I do have a couple of rigging questions to make sure we don't start out behind the 8-ball.

1) Except on slip bobber reels, we usually fish braid. I'll be bringing a leadcore setup, another baitcaster with 25 lb multicolor braid, a jigging rod with 10lb high-vis powerpro, and two rods setup for slip bobbers with 10lb mono.

Do we need mono or flouro leaders when trolling for walleye or lake trout?

2) Can anyone suggest any go-to lures, colors, presentations? With leadcore and deep cranks like tail dancers, flicker minnows, and reef runners in the box, I'm hoping we can get deep enough to find the lakers. But at $10/pop for tail dancers I'd love to know which colors are a good bet!

3) My spoon game is really weak, usually more of a crank bait guy. If I wanted to throw a few spoons at Lakers or Pike here...?

Any other tips welcome!
 
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Lotw
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06/18/2018 09:52AM  
I would tie on a flouro leader. I usually make it 6' and use a uni to uni knot. (someone will chime in here to say that's wrong)

purpledesent (spelling?) tail tancers, perch, white, shad have all been good. blue and silver spoons as well as gold work well for me
 
tarnkt
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06/18/2018 10:58AM  
I’m not much of a troller but I would use lighter line for slip bobbering. I like 6 lb mono but if you’re not comfortable going that light others use 8 and do fine also. 10 lb test is pretty heavy.
 
mastertangler
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06/18/2018 04:03PM  
I always cringe when I hear high Vis braid. Great stuff for kite fishing or high speed wahoo trolling.

I'm with lotw and would throw leaders on your braid but I would have them at 10 ft using an FG knot which is so slim it will crank right through your guides onto your spool.......especially with high Vis braid.

Not so sure I see the need for leadcore this time of year. The 10lb mono with the aforementioned purpledescent large tail dancer will put you into the laker game. If they are active they will come and get it. Fish below them and you will strike out.

Me? I would probably ditch the braid and the lead core and just focus on using a clear 10lb mono. Hard to go wrong with that plan.
 
thegildedgopher
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06/18/2018 07:12PM  
If you fished the river down here as much as I do, you wouldn't be cringing!

The walleye bite can be so subtle your only chance of detecting is with FEEL, which braid excels at, and by literally watching for the line to do something unusual, which high vis excels at.

I'm unfortunately not in a financial position to re-spool everything right now, but I'll definitely tie on leaders.

I should note that I'm in a 14ft boat, not paddling -- so bringing extra rods like leadcore setup isn't a big deal in terms of weight, etc. It allows me to put original floaters and other shallow diving cranks down in the 25-30 foot zone as well.

I do think I have some 6 or 8 lb mono laying around. Do people think that's really a significant advantage over 10 lb, which I've always run and done fine elsewhere?
 
Savage Voyageur
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06/18/2018 08:26PM  
1) Everything is Trilene 8 lb mono XL for Walleye, slip bobbers and trolling. It is about as cheap as you can get for line. Your 10 mono would also work for this. It takes me about 30 seconds to rig a slip bobber to a lure. We catch lots of Walleye, no fluorocarbon leaders needed.

2) your lead core will get the lure down where the fish are. As far as color you should try to find a Purpledesant color Tail dancer. They come in two sizes so get the bigger size. Why purple? Because purple is the last color that disappears in the color spectrum, they can see it deeper.

3) For pike get the standard daredevil in black/white and red/white. Also the Silver, Gold, copper colored Dr Spoons in size 275.
For lakers get a blue/silver Little Cleo spoon in 1/2 -3\4 oz size.
 
thegildedgopher
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06/22/2018 01:41PM  
Back from our quick trip. I ended up buying a spool of 8lb trilene, stripping off some braid to make room on our reels, and adding a chunk of mono on. Double uni knots worked great.

We trolled purpledescent and perch tail dancers between 20-35 feet with and without lead and never did find any lakers. Any time we moved spots we used that time to troll but just didn’t hook up.

We did catch all the smallies a person could ever ask for, including some nice chunky upper teens fish. My kid was busy reeling! For fun I fished a leech under a slip float on that yellow line, smallies didn’t care. I could see walleye being a little more finicky tho.

Thanks again for He advice folks!
 
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