5 secret summer tips for lakers, bass, muskies, pike and walleye

Summer Secret #5: Snap-strolling for Walleye

With summer walleye at their physical peak, eating up to five per cent of their body weight daily, you don’t want to show them a slow, namby-pamby presentation involving live bait. They’re looking to crush something, so now’s the time to snap-stroll a Rapala Jigging Rap, Rapala Snap Rap or one of the new Kamooki SmartFish lipless crankbaits.

Snap-stroll? For the uninitiated, the technique covers water with an aggressive, erratic presentation that never leaves the high-percentage zone where most walleye are swimming, stacking the odds heavily in your favour.

It involves using your bow-mount electric trolling motor or tiller handle outboard to push the boat along at between 0.7 and 1.2 miles an hour. Meanwhile, you drop your lure over the side, allowing the line to trail behind the boat at no more than a 45-degree angle as you snap the lure up off the bottom and let it fall. The key is to balance your boat speed with the weight of the lure so that it remains in the critical two- to four-foot zone above bottom.

Ten- to 14-pound-test gel-spun line spooled on a 2500 series spinning reel is ideal. So, too, is a seven-foot, medium-heavy-action rod. I always add an 18- to 24-inch leader composed of eight- to 10-pound-test Maxima monofilament. When I use a Snap Rap or Jigging Rap, I remove the bottom treblehook to reduce snags. The Kamooki SmartFish (below), on the other hand, is brilliantly nose weighted, so the tail treble rides up off the bottom.

A critical part of the presentation is the pause after you snap up your lure, and after you let it fall back to the bottom. It’s during these brief intermissions that 99 per cent of walleye will smash the bait. And put an end to those summer fishing doldrums.