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Fished Tuesday morning headed west out of the catt 5 miles and set up we worked   84 -93 f o w and trolled just about to the Purina when we finished up ..really good screen the farther west we went.. ran harnesses .. copper watermelon and chartreuse worked for us ..no slobs..all nice eaters 

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September 5. Started at 7. Went straight out and trolled north. Started in 65 FOW. When we got in about 75 had some fish on screen. Turned West. Caught 6 by noon. Slow morning. Saw fewer fish towards Dunkirk, as water fit deeper to 90 feet Turned around and came back towards the Catt. At about 78 FOW Found lots of walleyes and caught 6 more in 2 hours. All stick baits. Varied our speed constantly with the i troll in hunt mode. From 1.5 to 2..6. the fish were 60 feet down. Towards the bottom. IMG_20190905_124112930.jpegIMG_20190905_132757380_HDR.jpeg

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September 5 additional information: A 7,8, and 10 color leadcore didn't do much . Usually I catch most of my fish on leadcore. I don't think they were getting down to the fish. A 10 color may get to 50. Even tried a deep diving plug on an 8 color, no luck. Riggers caught only 3, and only with fluttering. I never catch anything on riggers unless I flutter (spoon). Most were caught on divers. I find it virtually impossible to get divers to trip on Walleye. I had a Chinook diver and a dipsey out. Both adjusted as light as they will go. Many fish did not even trip diver and the only way we knew we had a fish was to be extremely attentive to the rod bend, etc. I do have a slide diver but I took it last time out because it has some issues, defective. Also, we ran two harnesses for hours and never even lost the worm. But at the cleaning station a couple guys got their limits on harnesses. I find that odd. But I always catch more on rapalas and long A bombers.

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Garry, good to know that I am not the only fisherman having trouble getting dipseys to trip with typical size walleye. Mine are also set as light as possible without tripping on the drop. I added snubbers to reduce line twist. That has helped that issue. I have to watch closely to detect the hit. Have reeled in a number in the 17 to 20 inch range that I didn't know were on. My Cabela's dipsey rods may be too stiff for walleye?

Going out Sunday. Hope to be able to drift if wind is above 10 knots or so.

Thanks for sharing.

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Also we use the bells and also set your clacker on your reel to the on position and set your drag just light enough to not pull the line off the spool like a single click you might hear when waves pull your dipsey and you know its set right, when a fish hits thats light it will ring the bell and also you will start to hear it clicking indicating you have weight that is more than when you started pulling your diver, that equals a fish on the line.


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My wire divers never trip on fish, but seeing that you have a fish on is typically pretty obvious. I'd never even considered that it could be an issue................ Manually tripping them from the boat is no problem.

Hoping for a trip on Sunday. 

Edited by J. Sparrow
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Went out today, wife and I put 10 in the box. Ran 8 and 9 color lead, fished 68 - 75, most fish caught right at 70. Also most marks. We marked a lot of perch fishing for 4 hours, and couldn't keep them off the harnesses. We boated 9 and kept 5 nice ones. They also robbed worms, which sucks when you see their bouncy hits on the rod then nothing, and you haul in 8 colors of lead to check.
I agree with you guys on divers, I've also had a tough time getting them to trip, and thats a workout hauling them in when they won't. I quit using them and work on perfecting my leadcore fishing. If you don't think you lead is getting down to the bottom let out more backing until you hit fish, noting on your line counter how much you had out and get it there each time. I found today that trolling at 1.2 - 1.4 also helped me to bounce bottom.

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Fished this morning for 3 and half hours, ended with our limit. Mix of sticks and harnesses. Sticks out fished harnesses. Dipsey, riggers and 10 colors. We were just a bit west in 75 to 80 fow. All the fish we caught were 60’ down. Most all of the fish we marked were the same, 60’ down. Nice weather, calm lake and good fishing. Lake was starting to build when we finished up around 1230 or so.


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Fished this morning for 3 and half hours, ended with our limit. Mix of sticks and harnesses. Sticks out fished harnesses. Dipsey, riggers and 10 colors. We were just a bit west in 75 to 80 fow. All the fish we caught were 60’ down. Most all of the fish we marked were the same, 60’ down. Nice weather, calm lake and good fishing. Lake was starting to build when we finished up around 1230 or so.


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Same here, the wife and I boxed out as well, but caught most of ours on Dipsey and Harnesses, less on sticks and 10 colors, same depth though, guess it depends on the pods of fish we are on as to their food preference. Nice conditions for sure today out there, very enjoyable for the 4 hours we were out.


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I use my salmon wire line dipsey rods. I've used slide divers, Chinook divers, and luhr Jensen dipsey divers. Nothing really works well as far as detecting hits, I think the walleyes just swim along with the lure. I do set drag as light as possible and use that as an aid.

Have you tried not using snubbers? I have had most walleye trip the dipsey and I do not use snubbers and have braid on the dipsey rods.

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Went out today, wife and I put 10 in the box. Ran 8 and 9 color lead, fished 68 - 75, most fish caught right at 70. Also most marks. We marked a lot of perch fishing for 4 hours, and couldn't keep them off the harnesses. We boated 9 and kept 5 nice ones. They also robbed worms, which sucks when you see their bouncy hits on the rod then nothing, and you haul in 8 colors of lead to check.
I agree with you guys on divers, I've also had a tough time getting them to trip, and thats a workout hauling them in when they won't. I quit using them and work on perfecting my leadcore fishing. If you don't think you lead is getting down to the bottom let out more backing until you hit fish, noting on your line counter how much you had out and get it there each time. I found today that trolling at 1.2 - 1.4 also helped me to bounce bottom.

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Good tip. I always just let out enough backer to get all the leadcore in the water.

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Went straight out off the Catt about 7:30 am to 83 fow & started trolling west. Lake was weird early on, wind was out of the north, rollers were out of the west. Didn't catch anything for 3 hours. We were marking fish, but they were closed mouthed. Went into 70-75 fow, and the bite was on. Got a 2 man limit in the next 2 hours, all on harnesses. Sticks were not working for us. Copper backed watermelon harness was the best producer. Riggers were 3' off the bottom, dipsys on 2 setting at 135. Best area was about 2 miles west of the creek off Silver Creek bay. No slobs, all good eaters 17-20" Home for the 2nd half of the Bills game, which was the best half to watch.

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I usually let all the lead then 10 passes across the reel of Power Pro backing. Then the board gets put on and out she goes.

Had another awesome day today west of the Catt. 4 people and we were done in 4 hours. Back in time to listen/watch Bills win. Watermelon harnesses on dipseys out 165 on a 2 setting and 195 on a three setting we’re absolutely crazy. Did get 6 on riggers with sticks and 3 on a ten color core with a stick. The rest came on wire divers. Great day all the way around.


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I usually let all the lead then 10 passes across the reel of Power Pro backing. Then the board gets put on and out she goes.

Had another awesome day today west of the Catt. 4 people and we were done in 4 hours. Back in time to listen/watch Bills win. Watermelon harnesses on dipseys out 165 on a 2 setting and 195 on a three setting we’re absolutely crazy. Did get 6 on riggers with sticks and 3 on a ten color core with a stick. The rest came on wire divers. Great day all the way around.


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I get a kick from all you guys. Dipseys, lead core, wire. All of you must be meat fishermen. There is no fight using all of the above. It’s like bringing in a boot. I enjoy bottom bouncing with with a light medium action spinning rod feeling the fight. And I’ll out fish those with the heavy weight equipment. Have have enough walleye in my freezer. Was out today, stopped at six then fish for perch with my seven foot micro rod. Ended up with 2 dozen. Could have caught a lot more. Bite was heavy.


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September 8, 2019. NOAA missed the forecast again,which is no surprise. They said one foot or less, and it was 3 foot rollers with a frequency that made fishing uncomfortable an difficult for tending lines, and keeping a somewhat smooth troll. We had a bad day, compared to many. We motored out to where I left off thursday, 70-75 FOW, and found some fish. We decided to try bottom bouncing with crawler harnesses, because my father in law just came back from 8 days in canada and they catch tons of walleyes with jigs up there, rod in hand. After half and hour with no bites, we started trolling. The fish did seem scattered as I found most of the times I have been out this summer. I trolled through my marks on thursday in 75 FOw, out to 80 and back, and we did see a fair number of walleyes at 60 feet down whwre the water temp was 71 versus 72 on surface, as I recall. Only caught 3, and decided to call it a day because my father in law could not even stand up in the boat with his bad knees.  Caught One on a rigger at 65 (spoon), one on a 200 copper (stickbait tipped with crawler), one on a diver (crawler harness- round blade this time) .  Oh,  had another hit on the diver and lost the entire setup, black chinook diver too, my last one. Wire just broke. I think we were running our divers too high for most of the time we fished, and I usually experiment more, but for some reason I didn't today and it hurt us. I ran them around 145-160 most of the time. Mistake. I sometimes let out line until they hit bottom and then crank in a little but I didn't do that today.  I didn't even try leadcore because I did not think it would get down with as rough as it was and the boat moving up and down and sideways 3 to 4 feet in every directions. Thursday leadcore did not work for me, which is unusual because I usually have real good luck with it. I didn't want a copper leadcore tangle with the waves today so I left the leadcore stowed.  Someone mentioned it was a weird day with the wind, waves and current direction, and I agree.  It seemed for us a southwesterly troll was smoothest. I did not use hunt mode with my itroll today because with the current,wind and waves it would be too hard to program in the right settings. I tried to maintain my speed from 1.6 to 2.3.  I will be back out there Saturday waves permitting. Moral of my  story-lesson learned  for today was, try everything and see what works. 

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