(continued)

I like baits like the Reef Runner Ripstick for their weight and their wide-wobbling action. It also has three treble hooks, a factor I believe increases catches when strikes may be half-hearted, at best. Cast the stickbait parallel to shore and keep moving until you contact fish (trying not to break a leg in the process). The best retrieve generally is slow and steady.

Boat Tactics
Fishing from a boat has its advantages and disadvantages. The main disadvantage is that a boat can be difficult to control in the wind while fishing next to large boulders at night – one mix-up, and the result is serious damage to your boat.

The advantages are covering water much more effectively, and not having to worry about slipping and breaking a leg on the rocks. My rule: If the wind is howling, I stay on shore or don't go at all; if conditions are mild, then I take the boat.

The two basic tactics from a boat are casting to shore or longline trolling. Sometimes, if conditions are favorable – no wind or light winds – I may do both at the same time, longlining with one pole and casting with the other. The key is to experiment with both tactics to see which one may outproduce the other.

I increase my bait choices in this situation. Balsa baits like Rapalas are fine for longline trolling. The idea is to experiment with the different stickbaits when trolling – the Reef Runners have a wide wobble and the Rapalas, a more subtle one. Depending on conditions, one may outperform the other.

Other baits I've had success with over the years include Storm Thundersticks, Bagley's Bang-O-Lures, and Smithwick Rogues. I often experiment with firetiger, natural silver, or natural gold colors, to see which might be working best. In recent years, another combination also has been consistently productive, a lure with a silver side and a chartreuse back – a combination of natural and fluorescent colors.

New Tricks
One evening last spring I made a serendipitous discovery while longline trolling down the soreline. There were a few other boats also out, though they were all casting to shore from a stationary position. It was just after sunset, so it was still fairly light out.

I was trying to keep my baits in 8 to 12 feet of water and was trolling 1 to 1.5 mph. When approaching a boat that was casting, I sped up to 2 to 2.5 mph and passed it on the outside in about 16 to 20 feet of water. As I did so, my outside rod, which was running a lure about 9 feet down over 20 feet of water, bowed over. I thought for sure it must be a white bass suspended out there, but it was a walleye.

This fish intrigued me, but not enough to abandon my traditional plan. I simply slowed down and resumed trolling in shallower water, with my baits occasionally ticking bottom. A couple of hundred yards later, I encountered another boat – and the same thing happened: Another suspended walleye. No way can this happen again! I was thinking to myself, about the time the sound of my drag sounded out.

At that point I continued trolling deeper for suspended fish, but now darkness had set in and the suspended fish no longer seemed present. I moved back to the shallows and began catching fish again.

The lesson might be that a faster speed triggered those bites, so I'll be experimenting more this year with faster speeds. Most importantly, though, when walleyes move from deeper to shallower water to spawn, they don't always just follow the bottom up. Apparently at times they move up, suspend for a while just prior to darkness, and then may also spend significant time suspended during the day.

This all needs further investigation. Meanwhile, shore anglers might not want to spend all their time casting parallel to shore. Consider casting to open water, particularly just prior to dark.