Finding them without technology

[cyclops2]

Remember something about the USA country beliefs in general. 

I can do what ever I want to. Certainly buying fish or catching them ls legal .  What they do with them in many areas is not even regulated.

 

But some very northern central walleye waters take,  " Keeping our waters just for Walleyes very seriously. "  They have "  Catch all the none Walleyes you can & kill them all ".  Each diehard group can do that very well.

 

[CM-fisher]

On 7/7/2021 at 9:27 AM, TOXIC said:

For me, the biggest hurdle would be not knowing water temp. Unless the fish are extremely shallow or extremely deep I use water temp a lot.  Weed lines with rocks are a favorite smallie hangout but how deep is dependent on water temp.  Isolated rock piles are another but you won’t know where they are without finders.  I would concentrate on bottom hugging plastics and work my way from shallow to deep.

At what temps do smallies come up shallow and at what temps would you expect them to be deeper?

[redmeansdistortion]

Trolling will definitely do you well.  As a matter of fact, this is how me and a friend fish for them.  We will use a 3 or 4" paddle tail on a 1/4 or 3/8 jig and putz around until we start hooking fish.  This is a very effective way of finding them in general.  20 years ago I used to regularly fish musky with a friend on Lake St Clair. and we were always hooking into smallies, a lot of nice ones at that.  Yes, they do hit musky sized baits lol

[cyclops2]

Now what ?  Yesterday  All of a sudden the 2" to 8" fish of all types are BACK into the shallow rock piles.  Trolling was doing 1 after another.  So was super long casts. 

 

I give up on trying to figure out them.  A week ago surface was just under 76 F Almost nothing. Now at 66 F.  They are all over.  In 3 to 5' of water.   No biggies. They are out in 16 ' deep or more and traveling with BIG baitfish schools.  

 

It is like all the easy to catch DAY TIME fish gene pool is gone.     NAAAHH      ?

[TOXIC]

19 hours ago, MN_Bassmaster78 said:

At what temps do smallies come up shallow and at what temps would you expect them to be deeper?

Normally, the hotter the water the deeper they will go except during sun up, sun down, and night fishing.  

[Tatsu Dave]

Guess my post will fit good here with the title, I do use technology..... YES its there so why not? Well the other day I got a rude lesson in fishing technology 101, we headed to the headwaters of a lake we fish and meandered up the small river. Sonar started to turn itself off and on, this isn't looking good. Son hooked a nice SM and reached for the scale, scale wouldn't come on. I'm starting to feel bad vibes here and fast loosing my drive to fish and want to figure out whats happening. We were in a couple feet of water fishing an underwater raised hump that looked good, bang I get a nice one on and tell my son to man the net. After a power run I get it closer to the boat and it sees us, off again on another run but this time it does its first tail walking jump and flings the lure and rig at us and hits the side of the boat. We both didn't say a word........I knew when I saw it that it was three-three and a half lbs. Wow my mood is now plummeting and I'm ready to head in, so when the sonar won't come on at all now I just turn us around and start picking my way back to deeper water. What else can happen? I was moving real slow but the water was so fouled from runoff and tannin that you could only see your lure down about a foot, the next bang was the lower unit and a large rock ?We was running at an idle and that was a very good thing! No troller or sonar but as we got to familiar water that I knew we powered up and rolled. I put this entire boat together and knew it would all make sense somehow when we got home.

 

Put some dings in the prop and beat the skeag (spelling) up as well, easy to fix though could have been a lot worse. Battery turned out to have a dead cell in it and chose to give out this trip, new battery and that problem went away. Sonar broke the wire at the fuse from corrosion and a rewire put it back online again. Scale just had dead batteries so an R&R on batteries fixed my world again. We did find a new smallie spot while the water is high however and I WILL be back there again. I have a date with one in particular. But so many things all on the same day?  Dave 

[TnRiver46]

21 hours ago, Tatsu Dave said:

Guess my post will fit good here with the title, I do use technology..... YES its there so why not? Well the other day I got a rude lesson in fishing technology 101, we headed to the headwaters of a lake we fish and meandered up the small river. Sonar started to turn itself off and on, this isn't looking good. Son hooked a nice SM and reached for the scale, scale wouldn't come on. I'm starting to feel bad vibes here and fast loosing my drive to fish and want to figure out whats happening. We were in a couple feet of water fishing an underwater raised hump that looked good, bang I get a nice one on and tell my son to man the net. After a power run I get it closer to the boat and it sees us, off again on another run but this time it does its first tail walking jump and flings the lure and rig at us and hits the side of the boat. We both didn't say a word........I knew when I saw it that it was three-three and a half lbs. Wow my mood is now plummeting and I'm ready to head in, so when the sonar won't come on at all now I just turn us around and start picking my way back to deeper water. What else can happen? I was moving real slow but the water was so fouled from runoff and tannin that you could only see your lure down about a foot, the next bang was the lower unit and a large rock ?We was running at an idle and that was a very good thing! No troller or sonar but as we got to familiar water that I knew we powered up and rolled. I put this entire boat together and knew it would all make sense somehow when we got home.

 

Put some dings in the prop and beat the skeag (spelling) up as well, easy to fix though could have been a lot worse. Battery turned out to have a dead cell in it and chose to give out this trip, new battery and that problem went away. Sonar broke the wire at the fuse from corrosion and a rewire put it back online again. Scale just had dead batteries so an R&R on batteries fixed my world again. We did find a new smallie spot while the water is high however and I WILL be back there again. I have a date with one in particular. But so many things all on the same day?  Dave 

Should’ve went canoeing ……..

 

just kiddin, glad you made it back and got everything fixed 

[cyclops2]

Only people who fish a LOT OF TIME can have that combination of break downs at the same time.  I too do not do needless P M parts replacements. My little bas boat is a 1988 Lowe 16' Aluminum With a 100,000 hours on a 1988 Evinrude 30 hp 2 stroke.  

My boat would not crank the first time this spring.  The heavy battery cables finally corroded thru at several places. The Garmin last season was acting erratically.........I replaced the connectors on most wire ends.  My boat was still on the trailer ready for relaunching.

[Tatsu Dave]

Yeah technology is great but there are times you realize how much you depend on it when it goes. Fish alot? every chance I get, several days a week but our summers are quick and fall can get cold fast.  

 

I had it back up and ready the next day, floor comes out quick and all is well.