6 Oclock Saturday Morning found my son Todd and I heading upriver with expectations of a great day of walleye fishing. The weather was cloudy with light rain and suppose to stay that way all day, The water was up a litle and even a little flow so we were confident we could find some fish. The first pass rewarded Todd with This nice 23 ” slot fish. We continued to catch fish all morning , untill the front went through and the fish just turned off. We ended our day about 2:30 with a total of 6 walleyes and 10 or 12 cats and drum.
Sunday Morning we went back to give them one more chance, even though the weather man was calling for heavy rains, we decided that it would be more fun to fish for walleyes in the rain than brush tree stands in the rain. Again the day started off with a couple nice slot fish like this 23 1/2″ and like Saturday we continued to catch a few 17-18″ walleyes between the catfish and drum. About 10 oclock it got very dark and we had to break out the gamehide, after 15 minutes of heavy downpour we called it a day and finished with a half dozen walleyes.
We caught all our fish on the channel edge trolling about 120 ft of lead, both #5 jointed shad raps and hot and tots in brown craw, clown and firetiger paterns upstream at about 1.5 mph. Todd had been experimenting with different rods for the leadcore as we both like to use it because it works but reeling in a fish with a leadcore rod and 18# leadcore line is about as exciting as Kissing your sister. Todd had rigged up a couple ST Croix 6’6″ rods with the sealine 47,s and what a difference not only did we not miss a single fish on them we actually began to look forward to those big drum, This really puts the fun back in trolling lead.
Thanks for the report and pics Tony. I use to troll leadcore years ago and lost alot of fish as it seemed that the line was always kinda sloppy when fishing and cranking it in. With the St. Croix rods and also the new Peregrine Leadcore rods that Dean at Everts sells along with much better reels [mine are Okuma Convector linecounters] leadcore fishing is ALOT more fun and I don’t lose the fish. The Diawa reels, both the Sealine 47 that you use and 27 models, are very good reels too for leadcore fishing. Leadcore trolling has come along ways from the days of long ago. Thanks for the report on catching fish using this technique.
Thanks, Bill
ps. Please say ”Hi” to Tony A. for me.
Your sure right about that Bill,
I love the St Croix rods and I just bought two new Sealines 17’s for the 7’6″ Tidemasters I’m ordering for my long lines, Like I’ve always told James , this is the ultimate setup
More like hes told everyone.
Nate runs the 17s for his longlines [yes James, hes converted, lol] and the 27s for his leadcore and is real happy with them. I’m still running Okuma Convectors [their top line linecounters] as they have been great reels and its too expensive to convert all to a different brand. HOF sells both brands. I can remember back when the oldtimers use to, and some may still do, use real stiff rods and plain Penn levelwind reels. They would use three different sizes/weights of leadcore on different rods for fishing different depths. Now a days our rods and reels are so much better along with much better crankbaits to use and have discovered that we don’t need three different sizes/weights of leadcore. We are spoiled very much compared to what they had back then. Most of the great equipment and even the boats we have too are products that have come about because of tournaments. Granted, some don’t like tournaments, but its because of tournaments and the pros asking for better boats, rods, reels, lines, electronics etc that we have all the great goodies that we are so use to using now. We are much better fishermen and enjoy our time on the water in our much better boats because of them. Leadcore trolling has been around for years and with todays much better equipment for anglers to use alot of anglers are now fishing with leadcore who weren’t before. Its very effective technique to use to catch walleyes with. 
Thanks, Bill
hey bill, do you know how many feet of lead he is getting on them 27,s ? I thought about using them for lead, but i was unsure if i could get enough on them or if it would pay out smooth enough.
I’ll have to ask him Todd. I’m putting 6 colors on my Okuma Convector 20 plus leader and alittle bit of backer. I would guess he could get all ten colors but I’ll have to ask him and let you know. I use the 20 for my shorty rod [inside rod] and a 30 for my longer outside rod.
Thanks, Bill
Todd, Nate says he only puts 6 or 7 colors max on each reel as he never uses even that much when trolling the river or Lake Pepin. He makes sure that he has the same amount of line on all 4 of his 27s so they read the same. With leadcore it makes it very easy to duplicate how much line is out on each reel [all the same colors with the same brand] and you can tell at a glance when not close to a certain reel that its the same as the others by the color of the leadcore line. We use the same brand of leadcore on all reels so the colors are the same on each when letting out line for this purpose so you know the person in your boat has out the proper amount of line too. He uses the 17s on his long lining rods. Again 4 reels so anytime someone is in his boat either fishing a tournament, prefishing, or fun fishing each rod/reel are exactly the same even with regular line as they are linecounter reels.
Thanks, Bill
thanks bill, thats good to know. i didnt realize you could get that much lead on a 27. The system you and nate use is the same way that i was taught by Tony Apisa, sevearl years ago. It has made trolling so much fun for me that now i would rather troll than anything, even if its not as productive as something else at the time
You must be like me which means you love operating the boat [kicker motor] as I love to troll crankbaits and also pull 3-ways too.
Granted jigging and casting is fun but I’m a tiller man at heart so even though I run a console boat I LOVE running my kicker in the back of the boat. 
Thanks, Bill
Good to see that the team of Carnes & Carnes is out there catching some fish. Looks as though you guys got into some nice fish :bow:.
With the rising water and all of that duckweed coming down river sure is going to make it some tough fishing. Good luck to you guys. Hope to see you soon.