Following a particularly poor performance, former Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach John McKay was once asked by a reporter, “Coach, what do you think of your team's execution.”

“I think it would be a good idea,” was his reply.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Had McKay been judge, jury, and executioner all rolled into one, the game would really have been over.

Sometimes, it seems like nothing goes right, despite your best efforts. In fishing, as in life, the time may come when it's best to file away the play book and start from scratch.

That's the situation faced by some anglers when they try everything normal they can think of, without results. Structure, cover, drop-offs, livebait . . . nada. Time to punt.

Or to pull a fast one -- trolling. If the conventional doesn't work, try something unconventional. It couldn't be any worse, and it just might get the ball rolling.

In late spring and early summer, walleye anglers typically cling to the edges of shallow flats meeting the main basin, where postspawn and presummer walleyes should be relating to the first primary structural elements outside spawning areas, in search of available food. Often that's in the form of minnows, perch, or other shallow-water-oriented baitfish that should, at least theoretically, be relating to some form of relatively shallow structure at this time of year.

But say they're not. The cover's barren. The food isn't there. Fish must move, even if that means plowing the featureless fields of offshore basins, perhaps even suspending in open water.

In some places, like the Western Basin of Lake Erie, walleye suspension is an accepted fact of life -- and fishing. When the fish finish spawning in late April, the big gals drop off the reefs and move out over and across open water, chowing down on shad, smelt, shiners, or whatever they can find. Huge schools of walleyes pursue huger schools of suspended or basin-riding critters. Consequently, planer board trolling with crankbaits or spinner-crawler harnesses, anywhere from tickling bottom to off-bottom to near-surface, typically produces most of the larger fish.

In inland waters, the predator-prey relationship and fish-forage location may be less obvious. At this time of year, it's common for fish flies and mayflies to begin emerging from basin areas at the 20- to 40-foot level. If the lake faces a temporary seasonal shortage of edible-size baitfish for walleyes to feed upon, well, it's quite logical for them to move out to the mud and feast on emerging bugs. Perhaps not where you wish to fish. But wishin' and fishin' aren't always in sync. Dragging those boards out across the open basin adjacent to the formerly logical shallow zones becomes a good game plan.

This is particularly true in crystal-clear waters where, for some odd reason, weeds don't grow in the shallows until much later than you'd think. You cruise the shallows and can scrutinize the detail on every rock and pebble down to 15 or 20 feet. Good luck catching a fish there -- at least during a sunny day. But the fish are somewhere. Faced with this terrible prospect, abandon all hope and reason and move offshore.

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