Looking good! How fast were you pulling them?

If it is anything like lake Clitoros I find that it is essential to find the “spot on the spot”. Move around slowly until you see something happen, then keep working that area. Eventually you should see a small explosion of action and if you are really good you might see 5-6 flurries afterward. Remember to go slow and methodical…

Just my experience….

Reddog,

So on the Navionics you can highlight a certain depth range? Say from 14-18 ft? We fish the Missouri, NE SD lakes, Spirit, East & West Okoboji, and some other smaller lakes around NW IA. I see you are from Spirit Lake, would you ever consider teaching someone how to use their new unit?

I will look into the breaker and the gauge of wire run. I do mean that the motor itself is kicking out, not that the autopilot is not able to hold me. I realize that when it gets rough you can’t expect perfection!!

Both batteries were replaced three weeks ago, so that is not the problem. My guess is that it is the breaker.

Thanks!

Well I paid about $4.50 at a local shop…maybe slightly over-priced, but atleast we have them!!

What colors is everyone having the best luck with? I have about a dozen shad raps and plan on trying to duplicate the way I fish them with the flicker shads. From what I am reading I may be letting out a little more line but that is fine since we mainly troll for long distances over flats around weedlines.

Any other cranks that would work in the 8-14′ range?

Yeah, these are the type I am looking for. Now if only someone knew where I could find them in tan. A guy used to make them in tan and you could buy them at Soo Sports in Sioux Falls, SD, but he will only make black and white now. Anybody have a clue?

Thanks for the input guys. With the electronic linecounters I realize they will go through some batteries. If I turn them off after I let out line will I use much battery? The guy is asking 350 for these three rods. What would you say? He is telling me that I would be paying for the rods and getting the reels free. I know some of you guys do way more of this buying/selling than I do so please let me know.

Where do you guys get your lead when you pour your own? Do you have to get “good” lead or can you just use old tire weights or the flashing from around chimneys? It seems to me that if I pour them outside and use the powder paint there shouldn’t be much of a health concern. If the concern is simply about handling the lead then why do we use them? I figure if I can get the pot and a mold for 60 bucks (used) I would come out ahead relatively soon. I usually just buy my jigs at Wal-mart for the river and they are $3/ 8 pack so I think it would be a good investment.

You say I should get the mold with more than the 1/4 and 1/8 ounce cavities but to me that just seems like it would be an incredible amount of work to make a 100 of them. You would have to do it 100 times; whereas if you had the 2 cavities you could cut that by 1/4.

Is this really a huge health concern? What makes this so dangerous? The fumes from the lead? If you make them outdoors is this really as big of an issue?

As for the number of jigs I go through in a year? I fish a small river (little sioux) and usually fish it 50+ time a year. My dad, my brother, and occasionaly a gf or sister come along. It is quite common to lose anywhere from 3-5 jigs per person on a given trip. That equals out to 9-15 jigs per trip x 50 = 450-750 jigs per year. This is just on this river. Now that I figure this out it makes me not want to eat the fish in there!! Plus all of the other fishermen losing theirs!!

So after figuring this out I would think that it would pay off in 2-3 years. This is not including when I go to the lakes or out to the Mighty MO.

Ok thanks Zach. Did you ever get that boat sold? I think we were looking at yours earlier this fall.

Excuse me?

If any of you guys feel like taking out a poor college kid some day just let me know!! I am always looking to get out a little. We try to get over there and fish every once in awhile but never get a whole lot from shore. I go to school in Vermillion (USD) so its only a half-hour jaunt. IF you ever feel like it just PM me on here….I check it about 50 times a day!!

Well I don’t know for sure what your talking about but they were both good catches!!

Day 2 with our 7. None of the fish were under 16 and none over 20.

Her First Walleye Ever!!

On day 1 I ended up with my limit of 5. On day 2 we ended with 7 out of our 10. I also forgot to mention that I released a 5+ lb walleye on Friday night and never got a pic She was postspawn and would have been a dandy had I gotten her a few days earlier.

That picture was not from 4/7. That picture has been on other SD websites for atleast a month…maybe more. It was not on Roy Lake either. If I remember right it was on Kettle/Cattail…there is a narrow area that connects the two lakes and he drove right over it. The other site has many more pictures and you could see probably 50 or more trucks in the background. The rtuck still had dealer plates on it too!!

Steve,

I suppose your out having fun on the water now!! I hope you found the fish again. Just a question on how those tourneys work though. If you were to bring in a limit of those 17-18 inch males we were catching how would you be sitting? From what I heard there were very few females being caught…and I doubt the weather is helping that much.
I would love to jump in your boat sometime…do you get out there often? I live up by the Iowa Great Lakes and mostly fish up there but we make it out there a few times a year. Thanks for the kind words. We were with 7 other guys so we kinda held up their end as well as ours…so we got to fish a lot longer than we would have. They all wanted to go in and warm up…me and my brother told them to come pick us up when we caught the 24 we needed! Well I hope you kill them today.

Austin Full

Hey Steve,

How did you do pre-fishing this weekend? Me and my brother were the two throwing jigs in Chamberlain on Saturday and my brother was the one who got your line for a bit. I don’t want to say anything that might give someone else the edge so I wont say much. Just wondering how things were goin for ya. I felt like asking if you wanted a boat partner for the day!! The fish were not there on Sunday and we had to move to the Indian school to find them. Our little boat couldn’t handle the wind and waves so we just opted for the shore…turned out pretty good.

I have checked at Wal-mart here and they are down to nearly nothing. The weird thing is that at home (Spencer, IA) Wal-mart had Bait Pucks down to 3 bucks and here they are clearanced for 5 bucks…thought they would be the same. Does anyone have an idea when they would start clearance. I am gonna take the gf to eat in Sioux City tomorrow night so I will take a look then.

Hey Shaley,

That guy that limited on perch wouldn’t happen to be a guy by the name of Ron would he? My dad fished that bite and he couldn’t get them but he also said the size wasn’t great. He ended up getting 25 gills/crappies in about 3 hours on Sunday afternoon after he tried those perch. I for one love fishing the lakes and try to as much as possible. Did you get in on the wader bite on Spirit this past spring….phenomenal!!

Not to burst anyone’s bubble but the corn will probably not be coming out as fast as you think. I just talked to my dad in NW IA and he said the corn is still plenty plenty wet and nobody is in a hurry to get started.

Not to burst anyone’s bubble but the corn will probably not be coming out as fast as you think. I just talked to my dad in NW IA and he said the corn is still plenty plenty wet and nobody is in a hurry to get started.

Alright I signed up…whats my prize?!?! Just kiddin the prize is that I get all of the helpful information from this site. I just wish I lived up on Mille Lacs or some of those lakes. I live around the IGL (Iowa Great Lakes) and I envy you guys that can go out and catch those big fish. I have put in quite a few years of walleye fishing and haven’t even cracked the 20″ mark. All of the 20″s I have caught have been from a small river…don’t think the lakes have them