Trolling at 4-5 mph for trophy Walleye??
Posted on September 9th, 2009
Last August my wife Barbara & the camera crew had waited all summer to fish at Eagle Lake Island Lodge in Northwestern Ontario. We had been there the year before earlier in the season and had excellent fishing for trophy smallmouth bass, walleye & pike. On this trip we were going to target trophy musky. We arrived at the Winnipeg Airport, unloaded our gear and met Mark Rangle, the owner of the lodge. After loading the our gear in their custom van, Mark said he had to make a stop at a local tackle shop to pick up some Rapala Tail Dancers. This came as a surprise to me since the Tail Dancer is one of my favorite lures to cast and troll in the Bay of Quinte for big walleye. Mark went on to explain that lot’s of anglers had been doing really well trolling for suspended walleye using the Tail Dancer, but in a very unique way. Let me explain, I’ve fished for walleye right across Canada using a variety of fishing techniques from opening day through the coldest winters on the ice and though I had done it all, including trolling for them while breaking ice on the surface on Lake Ontario, to fishing “dead-slow”, using using tiny 1/8 and 1/16 oz. jigs/bait. What I had never heard of is trolling for walleye at 4-5 mph and doing it in 90′ of water. Well, that’s exactly what anglers had discovered worked in Eagle Lake. After fishing for trophy musky for several days at Eagle Lake Island Lodge, Mark Randle, asked me if I wanted to try catching these suspended open-water walleye. So, after dinner and we grabbed the camera crew and headed-out. As we approached a pretty deep area in the lake (over 90′), I could see an armada of boats coming in to focus, all trolling pretty fast and in circles out in the middle of the lake. As we got even closer, we could see several fishermen in several boats standing and fighting fish all a the same time. It was obvious a lot of walleye were being caught. Some, we found out in just a few minutes were up to 30′ and weighed over 10 lb. Well, we set our lines out and started trolling pretty fast and instantly we started hooking walleye. In a matter of 3-hrs., we had caught enough trophy walleye to do an excellent show and they were all caught in 90′ of water trolling Rapala crankbaits at 4-5 mph….awesome!! If you would like to experinence the excellent fishing on Eagle Lake, make sure to check-out, www.eaglelakeislandlodge.com .
