Indiana Midsummer Walleye Fishing – Independence Day 2015

Indiana isn’t known for being a great walleye fishery, but with some determination and persistence you can put a few bags of delicious walleye filets in your freezer.  So many people I talk to say that they’d love to catch some walleyes, but they’ve never caught any, and they really don’t know how to do it.  Most are surprised when I tell them that their favorite IN lake has been stocked with walleye at some point during its history. I wrote this article recalling a recent outing I took in search of these golden toothy beasts, it explains the tactics I use to target walleye during the midsummer. 

It was 4^th of July weekend, and my partner and I had planned to make a run out to Summit Lake in New Castle, IN.  Summit is an idle only lake, so we thought it best to avoid Independence Day pleasure boat traffic that would likely be on Monroe or Brookville.  However, at the last minute my plans changed as my partner was snoozing the morning away, I guess his phone had fallen behind his bed and he never heard his alarm go off.  This trip in general had become kind of mess as I had made earlier plans to fish Monroe Lake this particular morning with someone else whom had to bail at the end of the week.  So as I sat in my driveway awaiting my partner as the sun began to rise, I decided I had to change my plans for a 2^nd time.  This means my strategy and tackle also needed to be changed, twice.  No problem, it happens fairly often when you fish as much as I do.  I spend more time on the lake solo, then I ever do fishing with a partner.

I was hoping my partner had just forgotten his phone, and that I’d see his truck coming down the street any minute.  That never happened, but my worrying of that scenario made me late to leave.  Again, no problem, there is an idle only lake that is fairly close to my house.  It can be a tedious lake, but it has walleye, not many of which are over 16’’, but I’ve been fairly successful there this time of year.  I opted for that lake instead of going ahead and driving the 1½ hours to Summit. 

I launched the boat under a pink, purple, and blue sunrise, I drove around and scouted my favorite areas, pulled to the middle of the lake, and began retying all my rods.  In my experience there are 3 ways to catch walleyes in July, you can cast, troll, or use a slip bobber.  These tactics rolled through my mind as I was deciding what to start with.  Before you decide what to use, you have to know what the walleye are doing.  With temperatures the past weeks soaring into the upper 80s I knew the water temps would be in the mid to high 70s.  We had lots of rain the week prior so the water was up and murky. The walleye are fish of temperature, they seek 65°F most of the time, so you have to determine at what depth in the water column is closest to 65°F.  With the surface temps at 75°, I figured the walleye to be in deeper areas suspended over the thermocline. When scouting the lake I marked fish in 15-20’ of water, but they were suspended at 10’-12’.  Most of these fish were placed off of structure, and in this case it was long points pushing out to the main lake.

Once I determined where the fish were, I then had to decide what baits I could use to get in that target area, keep in mind walleye feed up, so I needed my bait to run at 8-10’.   I decided to try tactic #1 and cast these areas first with a River2Sea Goon Crank bait in the Sunrise color pattern.  The benefit of using this type of bait is that it will also catch bass, crappie, etc.  So the action will not only be walleye.  I hit the points I marked first, and nailed a nice largemouth and a white bass.  After an hour or so of casting points and drop offs, nothing else came off the Goon, so I switched to tactic #2, trolling.  

I expected to troll most of the day, but I always like to cast right at first light, or at least first thing when I get to the lake.  It gives me a little time to get in the groove, as well as move around my target areas to watch my sonar to see what the fish are doing.  Plus, every now and again casting will win the day, which I’d prefer over trolling the whole day.  This day however, trolling was going to be the ticket.  Since I was fishing without a partner I started with a single planer board with a Willowpine Tackle Spinner Rig in Fire Shad tipped with a nightcrawler, to get my rig down to my target depth I used a ¾ oz walking sinker.   That went 35’ back behind the planer, and was put in a rod holder.   Then in my hand I had a 1oz bottom bouncer with another WPT Spinner Rig, also tipped with a nightcrawler, but this one was in the Emerald color pattern.  I was moving with the wind at about 1-1.5mph.   It was 2 minutes into trolling that my planer board jumped back, and I knew I had a fish.  I reeled in the bottom bouncer in my hand, and started fighting the fish on the planer.  I get it to the boat and it’s a real nice bluegill.  Awesome.  Everything went back out and I continued on my path.

I got to my favorite point and as soon as I got over it I saw the planer jump again, it was a 15’’ walleye, great, skunk is off for the target fish.  I marked a waypoint on my graph, spun the boat around and went over that spot again.  This time I felt a bite on the bottom bouncer, I set the hook and reeled in a decent 10’’ crappie.  Over the next couple hours it kind of went this way.  I caught another 14’’ walleye on the planer, several crappies, and a white bass all in about a 100 yard area.  It seemed as though the walleye really liked the Fire Shad rig, so I switched a similar rig on the bottom bouncer.  For some reason that changed everything, the bite shut off on both the bouncer and planer board.  By the time I switched colors it was nearly 12pm, it was really hot, and I was ready for lunch.  I stopped to eat lunch, have a cold drink, and relax a minute before changing tactics.

Reenergized with a Rockstar and a pastrami sandwich in me, I decided I’d find some shade and try tactic #3, which was tossing a minnow on a slip bobber.  I picked a drop off that was about 20 yards off the bank in the shade.  I tossed out 3 bobbers.  One at 8’, one at 10’, and one at 12’.  The 12’ dunked as soon as it hit the water, I reeled in a decent white bass.  I switched the 8 to 12 and caught several more white bass and crappies.  After about an 1½ hours of no walleye, I decided to switch spots, I picked up and headed to a point on the other side of the lake.  Since it’s an idle only lake it took me almost half hour to get there, it didn’t pay off.  More of the same, except take out crappies and add in catfish.   More than anything I was just soaking up the day, listening to a podcast, and catching fish. I really had no complaints.  I knew the walleye bite would be slow until the evening anyway.  

I moved around a couple more times hitting my favorite spots, but no walleye from a bobber.  I really like bobber fishing for walleye, but I prefer to be on a weed edge, which this lake has none of.  More than anything I was killing time before evening trolling.

As the sun made its way closer to the horizon, I decided to put the bobber rods up and I busted out the trolling gear again.  However, this time I decided to pull crank baits to trigger the reaction bite.  On the planer board I tied on a River2Sea Jerk Shad in Glo Plug color. On the Bottom Bouncer I put on a River2Sea Jerk Shad in the Tennessee Shad color pattern. I figured I would run these cranks until about an hour before dark, then I’d switch back to spinner rigs as the fish began actively feeding.   I came up on the point I had caught the walleye on earlier in the morning,  just as soon as my baits made their way over, the planer board jumped back with vengeance! I stopped the boat as my heart jumped out of my chest, this was either a snag or a big fish.  I began reeling in, and the line tugged back, this was a fish, and if it’s a walleye it’s the biggest one I’ve caught in this lake.  I get the planer board to the boat, and as I’m unhooking it from my line, the line goes slack, I had lost the fish. This is why I needed a partner on this day, running planers is fun and worthwhile, but a trophy fish will not wait for you to unclip your board, you need a second man to do that while you’re keeping the line taught. 

Annoyed with losing a good fish, I put the lines back out and continued trolling.  No other bites came from the cranks after trolling for nearly an hour or two.  As dark was approaching I grabbed the spinner rig rods and put them back out. My crawlers were lively and everything seemed good.   I hit the same point again that I had been fishing all day, hoping the big one would bite again.  First pass yielded nothing.  The 2^nd pass however I caught 2 more walleyes, both on the planer board. The bottom bouncer wasn’t the ticket today. My third pass yielded a white bass, a crappie, and one more walleye.

I had caught my limit for the day, so I decided I would pack it in.  I didn’t keep any of the fish as I don’t need any filets for the freezer, a recent trip to Lake Erie has set me up for the year on walleye.  So with nothing left to do I headed for the ramp.  The biggest walleye I caught was just 16’’, so the size wasn’t great, but it was nice to have a successful day on the water.  If the big one that got away was a walleye, then there is a monster out there.  It was likely a catfish or bass, but I like to think that there is an 8lb walleye willing to bite right off my favorite point.