HOT WEATHER CAN MAKE THE BITE TOUGH
With extended periods of hot weather, walleye and other species have to adjust location and feeding windows. On a recent trip to Northwestern Ontario, we found the fish much more active early and late in the day as you would expect. One thing I have learned over the years of fishing deeper, clearer lakes in this part of the world is let the fish tell you what they want.
I checked out all the classic structure including main lake points, sunken islands and extended flats with some scattered boulder piles. We caught a fair number of fish on most of these areas except the deep sunken islands. I marked a lot of big fish there, most three feet off bottom. My son and I had trouble catching them consistently. I knew what the problem might be though.
This brought back memories of the days fishing Linklater Lake near Vermillion Bay on our family holidays. It was a deep, clear lake with lake trout, big walleye and smallmouth bass.
Every day we would go out to check what the walleye were doing in a couple of different areas. One was an extended point out into the main lake, the other a deep hump just off the main lake basin. By checking out the spots with my electronics I would adjust my presentation to how the fish were relating to the structure, if at all. (There were many times they just were not there!)
STEALTH CAN HELP
One day in particular, was hot with little wind but when I checked out the deep hump there were large marks everywhere. Almost all were suspended three or four feet off bottom. Not wanting to spook these big fish, I anchored off the side of the structure. Then it was time to rig up slip floats and small jigs tipped with leeches. I made sure to that we could either drift or cast to where the fish were feeding.
SLIP FLOATS THE KEY
I had adjusted the floats so the bait would be about three or four feet off the bottom. After that we proceeded to catch one big walleye after another. These fish did not spook easily given the number of ciscoes relating to this structure at the time, the key part of the equation. Our leech dangling there was just a bonus for them.
I mention the slip floats, because at this time of the year on many of our lakes and reservoirs, it is a key go-to presentation that has lost some of its popularity to reaction baits like Jigging Rapala’s. Don’t get fooled, this will be the way to go, especially now if you have spot lock on your troll motor.
SPOT LOCK AN INCREDIBLE TOOL
My Minnkota Terrova is a thing of beauty. It will hold us on the spot and let us adjust location as we see fit. Even though my boat is a tiller with a back electric as well, when I want to fish the spot on the spot, my front troll motor is in the water. On the recent trip to Perrault Lake, which was new to me, I would Autochart Live the key spots on my Humminbird Helix 10 and mark the areas that were holding fish. I would then double check to make sure I was still marking the fish, then spotlock on them.
In this day and age it helps to use all the tools available to you. There are two keys to this, release all the larger fish and don’t fish deeper than 30 feet or one atmosphere. Bringing fish up from deep water is deadly. While walleye tend to scatter a bit as we move into fall, there are still plenty of fish to be caught.