We got back last night from a trip and I wanted to give a report of our results. The weather was very hot during the day 90-92 degrees. The winds were crazy with 2-3 foot whitecaps on the lake during the day but calmed down after dinner time. We really needed to fish protected shore and bay areas because of the winds. The depth finder said it was 71.4 degrees surface water temperature. We found the walleyes still in 8-12 feet of water. We fished 4 days and caught about 45 walleye 3 Pike and 5 Smallmouth Bass, 1 Rock Bass. The walleye bite was on in at about 7-10 PM every evening but we did catch plenty during the day too. We brought in Leeches and night crawlers for bait. Most were caught on night crawlers. The rig of choice was a simple slip bobber, a split shot and a double snell hook for the crawler. The double crawler hook rig let’s the crawlers hang just right for a bigger meal. Every hook set was on the front hook right in the front of their mouth. If you want to use a leech just clip off the rear hook. It was definitely a finesse bite. Not hot and heavy, but a nice fish every 15 minutes of fishing. Walleye size were all between 15-18”. We kept our night crawlers in an insulated soft side cooler in the shade and the did great for our five day trip. We caught many of these Walleye right in camp because the winds was blowing hard during the day. We had to protect or stringers in camp because of the snapping turtles. We had a few of them that were 24” wide, and others were about a foot long.

The lake we were on has about 30 campsites and everyone of them we saw were occupied. We were very lucky to get a campsite. We saw a group leaving so we padded over and set up camp. Seems like every group was 6-8 people and most were traveling with heavy loads and base camping.

Once again I took way to much tackle that I did not need. But I’m really glad we had slip bobbers, worm harnesses and Crawlers along. I hope this helps anyone who is going to fish for walleyes this summer.

Will add that I just got out yesterday too and had essentially the same experience. They were still in less than 10 feet of water and they were on shoreline structure, not mid-lake structure. Slip bobber with leech was our best tactic and fishing from camp early morning and late evening was the most productive.