Sag Bay 7/10, 7/11

[walleyemaster]

Stayed at LBM for the weekend (didn't know about the tournament). After talking with guys at the fish cleaning station, decided to target the front of the channel at 1 & 2. Fished with 3 oz BB's and 1 oz in-lines Sat morning and picked up 4 - all in morning with 3/4 hitting chartreuse blades/beads harnesses.

Switched to 1 oz in-lines and hot-n-tots in the afternoon as it got really hot and sunny, but got nothing. When I got back at the fish cleaning station the guys that limited out said you had to fish in deep water (25' - 30') due to the heat, but you also had to get the hot-n-tots down to 18' - 20' or forget it.

Sunday went out and dragged meat for an hour early morning (7-8am) but got no takers. Switched to crankbaits around 9am (wally divers and hot-n-tots) and used 3 oz in-lines. GOT ZIP THE REST OF THE MORNING. I tried different colored hot-n-tots, different weights, different god damn speeds, but nothing. It is a lot of work changing up set ups every 1/2 hour or so when using plastic.

After lunch abandoned the cranks and threw on purple, blue and pink worm harnesses on the 3 and now 4 oz in-lines. Found a line of boats trolling (at 1.75 MPH) just SE of #1 and joined them in a pass along the channel. On the first pass with the wind/waves at my back, nailed a 4.5# (26') on purple #4 hammered blade with purple beads. Proceeded to hit 4 more in the next hour before the Bay got real nasty and blew everyone off it. All fish came on purple in the bright sun.

Pretty tough weekend, wish I could figure out how to get crankbaits down to 20'. I tried a mini-diver, but it would not work with a fast action hot-n-tot, it would only dive with a spoon and I didn't have any really good walleye spoons.

Oh, my son got tangled up with something big Sunday afternoon and I had to shutdown the trolling motor to allow him to fight the fish without breaking it off (10# test). After about 10 minutes he brought up the biggest channel cat I've ever seen - 9#'er. Thought we had the monster 'eye, pike or muskie on, talk about disappointment - all that time for garbage fish. At least it gave him practice about how to land big fish on light tackle.

I think the Bay is now pretty scattered from this point forward and the excellent fishing we had in June fishing is gone for this year...any thoughts?

[tawood]

That catfish may be a garbage fish, but catching one that big sounds like fun.

Instead of trying to get a hot-n-tot down that deep, I use Rapala Shad Raps or Tail Dancers....you can get these for different depths down to at least 30' (I think I even have a couple that will reach 40'). On those warm sunny days I'll hit 25' and cover the water column with a 10', 15', 20', and one draggin the bottom catchin clams. Works good for me.

[JWheeler]

Tough fishing for sure this year. I have taken less trips than I would like and have not caught fish with the frequency of last years catch rates. We were also near 1 & 2 on Saturday. I covered the water column from 10' down to tracking the bottom trolling spoons. 2.2 - 2.5 was our best. We caught 7 keepers, some farm animals and throwback walleye. I do know the FF was lit up all day. There were fish everywhere, however as you are aware they were not on the feed heavy. Tough to say the reason, but my electronics tell me they were there.

[Priority1]

Snap weights work well for getting cranks and spoons deep. Downriggers are another option.

[Twill23]

Personally i'd rather use an inline weight. They produce much less drag and are a lot easy to actually predict how far they will go down at which speeds(trolling bible). We're all about the much shallower water up norther here, but we love our 18's and our smithwicks.