We finally made the trip up Rt119 to the CT River. After leaving my house at 4:30am, we launched at a marina just before the bridge at Brattleboro, VT at 7am. When we launched the boat it was no warmer than 40 degrees, 44 at best. I left my winter hat on for the next 3 hours. We trolled thru the fog up river. Right away a little Smallmouth hit my new shad crank bait I was testing. After an hour of so of throwing the crank bait at the shore I started to troll using a deep diving Rapala. Andy also trolled a deep diver. Keep in mind the ultimate goal for this trip was to catch Walleye. Andy hit a nice Smally and a decent Walleye using the Rapala.
I received a tip before I headed north to troll deep for Walleye using a spinner w/ bait. At first, I used a 2 hook worm harnesses with red beads. I caught a few small Smallmouth and Andy was using an Erie Dearie Walleye spinner with night crawlers.
Without much more luck, I took and old spinner and removed the treble hook, clipped on a snelled hook with a beaded spinner (see pic) and made my own Walleye rig. It worked – I finally hooked in to one (pictured). We were fishing a ledge in about 20 or so feet of water, I used a triple ring swivel and a long trolling weight to help the rig dive.
Andy’s Erie Dearie eventually snapped and he too made a Walleye rig out of a spinner and snelled hook. We were both using Night Crawlers on our rigs. Andy also caught a monster Sunfish as well as the largest White Perch I have ever seen (pictured). It was massive. Why he didn’t keep it (for eating or mounting) I don’t know. I was a great catch. He released it.
At the end of the (7am-4pm) day the stats were as followed:
Matt: (11) Smallmouth, (1) Largemouth, (1) Yellow Perch, (1) Sunfish, (1) Walleye
Andy: (11) Smallmouth, (2) Sunfish), (2) Yellow Perch, (1) White Perch, (2) Walleye
33 Fish Total. Back home at 6pm.
Walleye info : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walleye
I received a tip before I headed north to troll deep for Walleye using a spinner w/ bait. At first, I used a 2 hook worm harnesses with red beads. I caught a few small Smallmouth and Andy was using an Erie Dearie Walleye spinner with night crawlers.
Without much more luck, I took and old spinner and removed the treble hook, clipped on a snelled hook with a beaded spinner (see pic) and made my own Walleye rig. It worked – I finally hooked in to one (pictured). We were fishing a ledge in about 20 or so feet of water, I used a triple ring swivel and a long trolling weight to help the rig dive.
Andy’s Erie Dearie eventually snapped and he too made a Walleye rig out of a spinner and snelled hook. We were both using Night Crawlers on our rigs. Andy also caught a monster Sunfish as well as the largest White Perch I have ever seen (pictured). It was massive. Why he didn’t keep it (for eating or mounting) I don’t know. I was a great catch. He released it.
At the end of the (7am-4pm) day the stats were as followed:
Matt: (11) Smallmouth, (1) Largemouth, (1) Yellow Perch, (1) Sunfish, (1) Walleye
Andy: (11) Smallmouth, (2) Sunfish), (2) Yellow Perch, (1) White Perch, (2) Walleye
33 Fish Total. Back home at 6pm.
Walleye info : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walleye
