Early in the season the surface temperatures of Rainy Lake shallows become very volatile. With our Bog stained waters we can warm drastically in the sunshine and cool down just as easy in cloud cover. I believe the rising and dropping water temperatures drastically change the mood of the fish we chase. Keeping a close eye on surface temps can often be a key indicator of how the fish will react to our presentations. While guys like myself try key visiting anglers off to the stage of a bite; The fish on a daily basis demand anglers adjust and adapt to maximize results.
Yesterday we had a minor cold front blow through “Borderland”. Frankly it was quite cool on the lake with a brisk wind. Dear Lord…….Thank you for the full windshield on my prized Skeeter WX2100!! I love the wind!! Wind congregates fish even though at times it can make boat control and fishing conditions a bit more troublesome. It is imperitive that anglers slow down a presentation when attempting to trigger fish in a nuetral state. I reference fish as “Nuetral” because technically they did eat. Negative fish seldom sit down to the table for a meal no matter how good it looks. There too caught up in being GRUMPY!! BTW it does happen though we do our best to avoid “Grumpy Gals”.
Though baits like the “Max Rap” come hand tuned with great action; Fisherman still play a critical role while attempting to entice nuetral fish for that “Binge” meal. The “Max Rap” from Rapala is a suspending bait stick bait also referred to as a “Twitch bait” or Jerk Bait”. One of the most dominating features of the “Max Rap” is the nuetral bouyancy factor. When you drive the bait down (Reel) on your retrieve, and then pause it, your bait will in turn suspend at the precise position you’ve left it within the water column. Anglers always ask how fast to reel……I simply respond by asking them to watch there bait. Drive the bait down halfway to the bottom and do what needs to be done to keep it there. Leaders and even snaps connecting directly to the oval snap ring can tip the nose of the Max Rap downward making a long pause look a bit unrealistic. Still in LARGE PIKE LAND some sort of heavier lead line material is highly suggested.
Normally I’ll hand tie 20-50lb Flouro leaders and hand crimp a barrel swivel on the lead with a medium sized clasp on the Rapala end (BUSINESS END) 
. My pause is momentary and hasn’t seemed to effect the presenation UNTIL……..
Yesterday the fish seemed “ONTO MY PROGRAM”. Coud it be……Was the word out?!?! In retrospect this morning…. those fish were nuetral. While as anglers it is easy to simply start up the “300 ponies” and leave an area figuring the fish aren’t around; I honestly felt we just were unable to get those big Walleyes to bite. I was convinced with the present wind direction and past history with this particular location that those fish were right where I thought they were and simply in a “GRUMPY” mood.
Here was the “SHIZZLE” for the day 
: I cut my clasp off the “Business end” and simply tied a knot with my Fluoro lead directly to the oval snap ring on the Max Rap. Remember a snap ring or clasp enhances the side to side movement of your presentation. Some baits such as the size 13 original floater do NOT come with a snap ring and thus I will ALWAYS use a clasp. In this case with the “Max Rap” it comes standard from Rapala with the snap ring. The removal of even the slightest weight from my added clasp brought my presentation back to a nuetral bouyancy. The finely tuned nuetral bouyancy factor allowed me to pause the bait much longer than I had been prior to in our day. Trust me this takes a lot of self restraint to twitch, twitch, twitch, Pause……………………….Twitch, Pause………………………………….. Still the slight variation in our presentation greatly enhanced our results from the day. I made myself count to 5 on each pause though at times I counted quickly !! BANG!!….BANG……BANG!! UNREAL!! All of our Walleyes were 22 inches plus, and pictured here was a beautiful post-spawn 26 inch Rainy lake Walleye who simply couldn’t resist that slow moving “CANDY BAR” paused directly in her wheelhouse. MANY other walleyes followed in her path in an area we casted through twice with Zero strikes prior. The fish were there and we eventually served them the meal on a silver platter………. precisely how they demanded it. We DID NOT hammer the fish, yet caught a nice mess of heavy Walleyes when prior to this change we couldn’t catch a cold.
Anglers are suggested to work areas you believe the fish are holding dilligently in cool water and even slower facing cold front conditions. 
