Trolling through the Dog Days of South Dakota

With a July Heat wave that came through having us all begging for hard water, water temps have climbed into the low 80s. This past week we saw 83 degree water temps on the surface. With Weed growth as tall as it will probably be as well as high sun low wind days, me and others decided to break out the trolling spread for some DOG DAY eyes. We focused on areas of the lake where we could set up a good long trolling run with a few small points of course to set up the fish. We started with a few different styles and colors of crankbaits at first to let the fish tell us what they want. These cranks included Rapala #7 and #9 minnow raps in hot steel, hot olive, and firetiger along with Rapala #7 jointed shad raps in perch and hot craw. We were running pretty tight to the weedline with the inside line occasionally hooking some slop.

The hybrid shad/minnow bait that the rapala minnow rap clearly started to out produce the shad rap on this day. A couple weeks prior the tight vibration of the shad rap was what the fish wanted in #5 and #7. Now it appears the slower wobble of the #7 and #9 Rapala Minnow Rap was the clear winner. I personally believe that the fish in low 80 degree water temps are hungry they are just personally uncomfortable so they don’t have the ambition to track a super aggressive running crank. This could be a joke of a theory, but I am just going with what is working right now. Friends out at the Missouri river with low 70 degree temps are still kicking out lots of Fish on Rapala Jointed Shad Raps in #5 along with Rapala Glass Raps. Perhaps it was the high sung or the water temp but we would observe the rod tip absorbing some small taps then would hook fish in the face or side of the mouth. It was almost as of if the fish were merely checking out the lure at times instead of actually wanted to eat it.

We were keeping the boat in about 13-14 fow with 4 lines out. We had #7 Minnow Raps back 130 feet on the outside front rod with #9s digging a little deeper next to the boat on about 80 feet of line. All rods were rigged with 10lb suffix in dark green with a small snap to secure the lure. We thought about flipping two planer boards out but the action proved to be to hot for that. We began a trolling run that was about a mile long which proved to have three little points that were stacked with fish. It was very fun being able to count down from 5 at these points waiting for a rod to take off. On this trolling run we caught between 50 and 60 fish from 14-26 inches with most coming in that 17-20 range. We fished for around 5 hours. 3 triples and 9 doubles over the course of this.

I found myself speed trolling between small points to get to the next one which provided some laughs for all of us. I love to pitch and troll cranks so the Dog Day bite is fine with me. I have the next 6 days off so will be fishing a few around here then it looks like off to Francis Case for some deepwater action. Tight lines and wet nets to everyone heading out this weekend. Be safe – QB