Covering Water

How many times have you arrived at a lake that you know has lots of large walleye, but you have no idea where to start fishing, or what type of tactics should be used to land the eyes. There are two ways to make your day successful drive your boat to a spot that “looks good” and hope for the best, or adopt a game plan and start to strategically cover water. I'd be a liar if I told you that the first strategy never works, but I think the chances of being successful increase if you have a plan of action.

Today, electronics like sonar have found they're way into most fishermen's boats, and these are a great way to eliminate unproductive water. I like to start in 10-12 feet of water and work my way out deeper from there. I've found that walleye tend to prefer hard bottoms preferably rock or gravel. Modern sonar is detailed enough to detect differences in bottom densities, allowing the type of lake bottom to be easily identified. If you don't have access to sonar, I can't say enough about non-stretch fishing line. These new lines are so sensitive that you can often tell what kind of bottom you are fishing simply by dragging your hook over it. Rocks and gravel are especially easy to recognize with these lines. There are a couple of downsides to this type of fishing line, if the line becomes frayed it will snap much easier than monofilament, so you have to keep an eye on the condition of your line, and retie hooks when necessary. Also, because the line does not stretch you have to make sure that your drag is set up correctly, if it's not you risk the chance of straightening hooks on the hook set.

Another way to find structure without electronic assistance is to pay attention to the water. Dark water equals deep water, so look for obvious changes in watercolor. Waves will also tend to be smaller in areas where the water is shallower, so an underwater island might appear as an area in the lake that the waves are slightly smaller. Waves will also tend to break where the water gets shallow so keep your eyes peeled for lines where waves start to break or change in pattern.

Now that you've identified some water that you plan on fishing how do you hook into some fish? When fishing new water I think it's best to cover as much good water as possible. Trolling crankbaits close to the bottom will often pick up actively feeding fish and may disclose some areas that disserve more of your fishing attention. If you are trolling crankbaits to identify more productive areas there are a couple of things you should pay attention to. First, how much line you have out when you hook the fish, this allows you to make an assumption as to where the fish was when you hooked it. Second, the speed that you were traveling when you hooked the fish, sometimes this makes all the difference in the world. Crankbaits will run differently at different speeds, and sometimes one type of action will produce more fish than others. Try adjusting the trolling speed until you find something that works. The third factor is what depth you're crankbaits are running at. Crankbaits are probably the best way to catch suspended fish, and suspended fish are quite possibly the most difficult fish to catch. There are hundreds of different crankbaits that are made to run at all different depth, but the same crankbait will run a little bit deeper if you use line that is thinner diameter, and if you let more line out. The farther your lure is from the boat the deeper it will run. If there are a few people in the boat try having everyone use a crankbait that runs at a different depth. Also try adjusting the amount of line you have out to modify the depth that the cranks are running. I'm a firm believer that the depth that the crank is running at is the most important factor, far more important than the color or shape of the lure, of course there are days when color makes all the difference.

Hopefully you can pick up at least one walleye on your crankbaits. If you do go back to the spot that and try casting the cranks, you may have solved the problem already. Some days, days when the fish are really active, crankbaits will produce large numbers of fish, but on most occasions you'll catch more walleye with a bit slower presentation.

Now is the time to take what you've learned from trolling and try and apply it to a new technique. Most likely the fish were on or near bottom, if that was the case there is probably no better way to catch walleye than to use the age-old classic jig. I've found that casting the jig and retrieving it slowly along the bottom is more effective than simply hanging the jig over the edge of the boat and jigging it. The simple fact is that you are going to cover more water with a cast than you are dropping a lure over the side of the boat. There are only two times that I vertically jig for walleye one is ice fishing, and the other is when the fish are suspended and refuse to take a crankbait. You might start to notice that you only catch fish when you cast in a certain direction; it might be worth moving the boat 10 yards in that direction and seeing what happens.

So in a perfect world you were able to pick up a few actively feeding fish on crankbaits and then were able to key in on the less active fish, what happens if you can't pick up any eye's on the crankbaits? If you're fishing unfamiliar water and you can't find any active fish there are two crucial things you need to do. Number one, find water that you know has fish in it. You need to forget about the water that looks ok, or that might have fish, and fish the water that you know will have fish really hard. Look for vary strong fish holding structure like the edges of weed beds, and big drop offs. Now that you've found a place that has to hold fish you need to follow rule number 2, Slow down. We've already established that the fish probably aren't feeding actively we have to slow down the presentation and make sure that these really promising areas are fished thoroughly.

My favorite way to fish a slow presentation, but still cover area is to stop the boat at the far upwind side of the area you want to fish, and let the boat drift slowly while you bounce a jig off the bottom, this can be done either by casting and retrieving slowly, or simply by casting out and dragging the jig along bottom. If it is windy the use of a drift sock can slow down the speed of the boat. You can even drag a small anchor along bottom if you don't have a drift sock.

When fishing new water there are three things that will lead you to success. Eliminate fishing unproductive water, you won't catch fish if the fish aren't there. Cover as much good water as you can, the more water you cover the more chance there is that you will cross paths with an actively feeding fish. And perhaps most importantly have confidence it the location and method that you are using, you catch more fish on your favorite lure because you fish it the most and because you probably fish it differently than a lure that you're not as confident in. This goes with any lake or fishing type. You will always fish the best water the hardest because you know there are fish there, after all you've caught them there before.