The Open-Water Alternative

Leadcore trolling—Leadcore line takes lures down deep. But it’s heavy—often too heavy to use with planer boards. Thus leadcore presentations tend to be done with long (8- to 10-foot), heavy casting rods placed in rod holders, and the path of the lure closely follows that of the boat. Use a rod-length mono leader between the leadcore line and the lure. If the fish are deep, fine. If they’re shallow and susceptible to spooking by the boat, planers are usually a better option.

Diving planers—Diving planers attach in-line between the line and the lure. Their angled faces dive deep, pulling the lure along with it. Some planers also can be set to run at different angles out to the side, allowing for a spread of lures at different depths and distances from the boat. Changing line length adjusts lure depth without having to retrieve the rig. A strike trips a trigger, de-angling the face of the diver, thereby reducing water resistance and allowing you to fight the fish. Use a rubber snubber between the diving planer and leader to absorb shock. Use a 4- to 6-foot heavy mono leader to the lure.

Due to the extreme water resistance of diving planers, heavy 8-foot, long-handled trolling rods placed in rod holders and 20-plus-pound line are necessary. But divers take lures deep, to 50 feet with mono, deeper with superline or wire, and can be used at speeds exceeding 4 mph for spoons or some crankbaits. Avoid deep-diving lures; spoons, crawler harnesses, and shallow cranks run fairly level behind the planer, but deep-diving cranks dip below it, pulling down the back of the diver, resulting in a loss of diving depth.

Downriggers—Commonly used for trout and salmon but typically reserved for extremely deep or fast walleye presentations, downriggers incorporate a heavy lead weight suspended on a wire cable to plumb the depths. Run lures out anywhere from as little as 6 feet in dirty water to 100 feet in clear water, and attach your line into a release clip on the downrigger cable or ball. Put the rod in a holder; back off on reel tension; and use the downrigger spool assembly to simultaneously lower the weight, line, and lure to the target depth. Reset (tighten) your drag. Can be trolled rapidly for spoons or cranks or slow enough for spinners. On the strike, the release pops, allowing you to fight the fish unfettered by weight. Outside the Great Lakes, limited pockets of dowrigging popularity exist for walleyes, such as at Lake of the Woods.

Open Season

In smaller waters with limited areas of open basin, open-water trolling opportunities aren’t difficult to explore. A fair amount of experimentation should tell you if it’s worth your time. If not, switch back to fishing traditional structure.

In larger waters with huge open basins, seasonal migrations take the fish through annual journeys covering many miles, and the number of area to be checked can be imposing at best. The answer is to familiarize yourself with basic seasonal movements, note areas that tend to be productive during certain time frames, talk to bait shop personnel or other anglers, note fishing reports, listen to marine band radio chatter, note the locations of other boats, and just plain put your time in on the water. There’s no substitute for effort, and even during the best of bites, you seldom catch fish consistently all day long. But when you tap into an active school and fine-tune your presentation to the right depth, speed, lure style, and color patterns, it’s lights out. Fish after fish, often all big, are your potential rewards.

In effect, it pays to keep your options open.