Sugar Mama Shakedown LBM 6/24&25

[Paulywood]

Finally got the boat or on the water this weekend. My 5 year old son Parker and my father in law were with me. Launched out of LBM on Friday around 1pm and headed northeast out to 22' of water. Ended up getting rods out and fishing until about 4pm when we pulled rods and headed in to be home for dinner. Parker ended up catching 3 walleye and 2 big white bass. I was running spoons and snap weights at 2-2.2mph and noticed we took all our fish on the side I was running 2oz weights and almost all of them came on the outside of a turn.

Headed back Saturday with Parker and my brother in law and we went to the same area we caught fish the day before. We seemed to be marking the most fish in an area west of the 1&2 buoys and east of some commercial net sets Friday so that's where we targeted. Ran 2oz weights on both sides and made some changes to the corner rods from small divers to a 30 Jet Diver on one side and a 4oz bottom bouncer on the other. Still trying to figure out what will work best there for me.

Ran at 2.4mph and landed 5 more walleye and 2 white bass. We were on the water from about 1:30pm until 6:30pm. Most of our fish were around 16" with a couple at 14" and one nice one at 19 1/2" that Parker told everyone at the fish cleaning station was the biggest walleye in the world. The boat ran great and honestly that's the most walleye I've ever caught on my boat (first 3 then breaking the record with 5). I plan to keep working on it the rest of the summer to see if I can get this walleye thing figured out.

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[Nailer]

Slowing down might help.  Nice start though.

[tgafish]

I love running spoons on the bay when they're working but the majority of fish have been biting deep and on meat.  You were in the right spot Nick just needed to be running harnesses.  Boxed 24 on Sat in 4 hours and 17 on Sunday in 3 1/2 hours last weekend in the same area.

[Paulywood]

My boat won't go slow enough to run harnesses.  It doesn't make sense for me to go out and try to run harnesses at 2mph.  I know there are people on the Bay who only run spoons and cranks and catch their limit.  I'm going to keep working on it and try to dial in one presentation instead of jumping all over the board like I have done in the past.  Nothing but spoons and tots for me!

[tgafish]

I hear rock music in the background and you singing "I can't drive 1.5!!"  Remember in the fall and spring you're going to want to run stickbaits at .9 to 1.2 to catch the big girls.  Stein and I went out in March this Spring and had a ball catching 3-7lbers.  Buy some bags and join the slow side LOL

[Paulywood]

I have to run 48" bags just to get down to 2! In the spring I'll just go out with other people who have outboards while my boat sits inside where it's warm. I'm going to figure out how to catch walleye on my boat if it kills me!

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[Mega Byte]

You say "bags" - so plural.  I would think with two 48" bags you should be able to get down below 2 mph, unless you are running a big diesel without trolling valves installed in it.  I've got a 250 HP Mercury outboard on my Proline 251, and my two 48" bags get me down to 0.9.  One bag got me down to 1.3ish.  

Most guys run their bags hooked to the mid and rear cleats on their boats.  But I think the 48 inch bags are relatively newer.  I found was able to reduce my speed more when the bags were hooked to the front side cleats and given a longer lead line to the front of the bag.  The center of the 48" bag needs to be lower in the water than the center of the common 36" bag.  I think the angle afforded by the longer lead line helped it open up better and allowed me to place it beside my boat where I was told they should run.  I also found the depth of the output end of the bag would affect my speed.  I did my experimenting with the bags on a dead calm day so nothing was affected by the wind or waves.

This is my first year trying to pick up walleye fishing so I'm in a similar learning stage as you.  Good luck!

[I_Catch_Her]

Paulywood, my friend, if it's super hot out, do you want to run wind sprints?

Neither do walleye.  S L O W  D O W N.

Shameless plug for a Minn Kota engine mounted trolling motor.  Super easy, and quiet.  Just have to keep the batteries charged.  Or a trolling plate, or a kicker.

We fished Saturday for a little over an hour and got 5 little keepers south of 1 & 2.  The big fish are looking for that cooler water, and not exerting themselves.