Finally it’s starting to feel like summer, and we have had some hot days on the water now starting the week of the Fourth of July. Classic summer walleye patterns are kicking in across the Midwest. The dog days of summer can provide great walleye fishing. As a general rule of thumb, many patterns start to push towards the lake basin o natural lakes and the old river channel on reservoirs. Main lake points and structure near this deeper water can often shine. These favorite lures, programs and presentations don’t cover every scenario that July can offer but if I had to narrow down the focus to just a handful of tactics or presentations that usually get bit… this would be my list of some of my favorites. These July programs have accounted for thousands of walleyes just for us alone.
Bottom Bouncer and Slow Death Rig with a Half Crawler
When walleye get tough and don’t want a lot of hardware on a rig above the bait, a Slow Death rig behind a bottom bouncer is deadly. There are many hook companies today that make a slow death type hook that causes the half crawler to roll, tumble or corkscrew in the water. My favorite hook which I still feel is the deadliest is a simple classic Aberdeen Hook (size four or size six) with about a 20-to-30-degree bend in the hook shaft. Both the head end and tail end of a half crawler work but the tail end has more of a wobble or shimmy that comes alive when you pull it at speeds a little over a mile per hour. Typically when running slow death rigs, we do like to shorten the snell to about three feet behind the bottom bouncer.
Pitchin’ Puppets
Glide Baits really kick in during the month of July and we often use glide baits like Jigging Raps, Johnny Darters and Shiver Minnows. Typically we use glide baits over deeper structure and not to say that shallow structure doesn’t produce but we often see a lot of slime on the bottom on many lakes in less than twenty feet of water and we like to fish glide baits over clean bottoms. My absolute favorite glide bait is the Northland Pitchin’ Puppet. The Pitchin’ Puppet has a larger fin and an oversize tail hook for keeping fish pinned up. The Pitchin’ Puppet is deadly and easy to use where it doesn’t take much snap on the rod to work the bait effectively.
Lead Core and Small Cranks
Especially during bug hatches and when young of the year baitfish push out over basins, small crankbaits with lead core is a deadly way to put a lot of walleye in the boat. With lead core line, you can troll small crankbaits in deeper water. Lead core changes direction and snakes through the water which causes the bait to surge and change tracking which often triggers strikes. Small cranks are productive when walleyes are stuffed full of baitfish or bug larvae. Some all-time favorite cranks for lead core include the Northland Size 5 Rumble Shad, Rapala Size 5 Shad Rap, Berkley Flicker Shad, Berkley Flicker Minnow, Salmo Hornet, Rapala Jointed Shad Rap and Rapala Scatter Raps. Best lures and colors can vary by fishery and day.
Scheels has an extensive line up of trolling rods in the Xtreme Trolling Line Up that offer varying lengths for staggering and spreading out lines behind the boat. With lead core, we typically use some of the larger line counter reels in the Cold Water line up from Scheels that can accommodate the larger diameter of lead core.
Short Shank Tungsten Jigs and Eye Candy Jig Crawler
Especially when walleye are positioned over basins or on deep structure, forward facing sonar like Active Target 2 is deadly for hunting down fish. Simple jig and live bait or jig and soft plastic combinations produce a lot of fish through the summer. For durability, we often rig the Eye Candy Jig Crawler on a short shank jig and for most depths less than twenty-five feet, we often use a ¼ ounce jig. The Eye Candy floats and gives the jig a lot of action but the stretchy elastic material is much different on the hook than traditional soft plastics. We often dab some super glue on the plastic to keep it snug to the shank of the jig. When the bite is off, we often rely on the Northland stand-up short shank tungsten with either a half crawler, full crawler or leech. Typically the program is to cast at fish and let the jig fall down next to the fish where the fish will often follow the jig down to the bottom. If that move doesn’t work, try dragging the jig through the fish and pull the jig away from the fish.
This short list is a confidence list for us where we almost always have these basic presentations ready in the boat when we are walleye fishing into July. What presentations and lures would you add to this list to catch walleye right now? We would love to hear the opinions of other anglers!
