Lake Vermilion Walleye Help?

I’m staying at a cabin on Ely Island next week July 23-July 27. I am planning on doing a lot of walleye fishing. I am hoping that someone would be willing to share any information possible to help make my trip a success. I am planning on using lindy rigs w/ crawlers and/or leeches and bottom bouncers and spinners. I have identified a lot of nice humps and points in the 20 to 25 foot range that look promising. Any tips anyone is willing to provide I would greatly appreciate.

I haven’t spent much time up on Vermilion but the one thing I remember was that fish really related to wind there. I would focus on wind blown shorelines and even better if you can find a bay with wind blowing in.

Thank you very much for the tip! Playing the wind is always a big help!

I’m a bass guy, but we were up there on the 3,4,5th of July. The few Walleye we caught were on small perch colored shad raps, cranking them shallow across tips and points of small islands. But the Mayfly hatch was in full swing then, so nothing was giving us much of a pattern. Smallmouth fishing was also poor,

It was really snaggy up there and I had a hard time running bouncers. I had my best luck with a bobber and leech and small jig. the more rocks the better.

Had good luck there a couple times. Wind swept points/shorelines with slip bobbers and deep(25-35ft) Lindy Rigs with plenty of weight with crawler or minnow worked for us.

You are on a good part of the lake for mid summer. My go-to community hole is a reef just to the east of the three islands that start with Potato on the west side. It tops off in 14-15′ of water and is a real good early morning bit. We use lindy and crawlers here, there is no rocks.

A good night spot is a tiny rocky hump right outside (100-200 yards to the NNW of the bay opening) Everett’s Bay that tops in 6′ of water. It will be on some maps and lakemaster chip.

All the deeper reefs and humps in Big Bay can hold some nice fish-so your initial research has you going in the right direction.

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It was really snaggy up there and I had a hard time running bouncers. I had my best luck with a bobber and leech and small jig. the more rocks the better.

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We use those long metal pencil-thin slip weights that Northland just came out with this year. Superbraid for main line, 6-foot Fluoro snell, hook and a bead. One-piece rods. The combo of superbraid and one-piece graphite rods, along with the sinker, give you a perfect feel for the bottom. You just troll or drift along and keep your rod tip up and keep popping it up off the bottom.

You can feel every little thing. If you do get hung up, everyone else reels up, you leave your line slack and reverse direction. Once you have a low enough angle from the other direction, the pencil sinker pops free nearly every time.

We first saw this technique on Vermilion about 8 years ago with the wire/sinker slip bottom bouncers, and I use it all the time now. I guide Burntside, and while Bside is much clearer than V, the bottom is much the same, and we catch plenty of ‘eyes on Bside even with the superbraid and 1.5 oz sinker. Generally 14 lb Fireline.

Rocks are good. Transitions lines between rocks and muck/sand are even better. And if there’s wind moving across those areas, best yet!

Dave’s right on about locations.

If you are the book-reading type, I wrote and published a multispecies fishing guide to Lake Vermilion a couple years ago. You can find it in some of the stores (like the Y Store and Vermilion Fuel and Food), and it’s available to order on the Timberjay Newspaper website.

Good luck! Vermilion is a sweet fishery!