Trolling Crankbaits for walleyes on Mississippi River’s Lake Pepin on Pool 4 was the hot ticket for Saturdays July 16ths Walleye Searchers Tournament. Even hotter than the weather was the fishing. The first pic is Erik with his biggest walleye to date. A 26 inch walleye at 6.60 lb. in the hands of a very happy angler
My partner for the day was Erik Carlson. He informed me that he hadn’t won a tournament plaque yet and wanted one so we decided early that we needed to try for some good fish to get him his plaque [top three finish]. My prefishing the day before up in the river had proven to be alot different than the weekend before where I had a good bite going. That left me with three lake options in my mind [big flats, rip rock flats, or flats in bays] as to where we would head out to at take off time. I told him how my prefishing day went [poor] and I was going to go with whatever my gut feeling was when the tournament started. [not a good way to pump up your partner, lol]
We headed for a flat along some rip rap and started long lining crankbaits. I started out at 255 ft. and Erik started out at 205 ft. to reach the fish on the locator that were near the bottom and Erick ran his 2nd crankbait at 50 ft. while I ran mine at 60 ft. We experimented with lengths through out the day to determine the best depth for where we were fishing. Boat speed was also played with to try trigger fish along with a very careful eye on the locator and GPS watching for depth, bottom content, structure, breaklines, and fish.
Erik was a ”hot stick” on the water this day and I gladly took some pics of him holding fish. This day he caught his biggest eye ever and the most fish he had caught in an outting he said. This was definately his day and he did get his Walleye Searchers plaque as we finished in 3rd. place. Erik, you were such a great partner that I just had to put together a report and post the pics of you holding fish. Way to go Bud. I know there are more plaques waiting for you in future tournaments. Heres another pic of that beauty.
Thanks, Bill
Bill,a big pat on the back for you taking that young man out on the water.And great job on the 3rd place finish guys.Nice fish Erik.
Ryan Hale
Thanks Ryan, but the pat on the back goes to Erik for such a great fish catchin day. He fished hard, went along with any decisions I made, and caught fish like a pro. He was a great partner.
Thanks, Bill
Great finish guys! Bill, you gotta get into a picture now and then…Starting to forget what you look like!
Great job!
Nice fish guys. Congrats on the great finish!!
Good job guys!
Starting to forget what I look like heh? Consider yourself lucky then.
Much more fun taking pics as my camera doesn’t break from my pic. 
See ya Friday at the BB/BS Day Bud. [and maybe I’ll take your pic] 
Thanks, Bill
ps. seriously, my pic can be on here anytime so its much more fun putting someone elses pic on here as its much more fun and exciting for them.
Bill that was an awesome day! Thanks again for putting us on the fish. Its a day I will never forget (biggest Walleye to Date).
Bill and Erik, nice work
The pics are great and it sounds like you guys make a great team. You can endure the heat when your having a good day fishing.
dave
Hey Bill,
What type of bait do you run at 225 ft? What depths are you trying to obtain?
Let me know.
Thanks,
FJ
Great report and Congrats on the tourney Bill & Eric
!
Nice report and fish guys
.
Just wondering what kind of crank baits were putting fish in the boat? What colors seem to work best on that day and whether or not most of the better fish brought in were suspended or hugging bottom?
The eye fishing on the river has been fair/good the last couple of times I have been out with cranks and jig dragging being the best 2 producers for my boat. Trolling speeds on the river have been in the mid 2’s to 3.8mph GPS.
If the lake keeps going like it was on Saturday I might have to venture down that way and see what happens
Great Job guys!
We were running Grappler Shads and Walleye Divers mostly in 15 1/2 to 17 1/2 ft of water. Hottest colors were blue, red, and firetiger. We each ran two lines out ”without” boards. Some fish were near the bottom [longlinning cranks] and others were up off the bottom so we ran shorter lines 50-60 ft back to get the ones off the bottom. Once the 2 best colors were found Erik was running those while I kept switching colors and amount of line out to see what other depth and colors they would hit and maybe find a better color. There were alot of tourney boats [who were very good sticks] in basicly the same area so we tried to get and hopefully stay ahead of any fish changes in preferrence of color while at the same time giving them the colors they wanted too. Hope this helps to make things more clear.
Thanks, Bill