6 Canadian walleye pros reveal their secret go-to baits

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EXPERT ANGLER: DANNY TOTH

GO-TO LURE: BERKLEY FLICKER SHAD

Five years ago while preparing for back-to-back walleye tournaments, Winnipeg angler Danny Toth knew the crankbait bite had been strong, so he picked out 12 lures that ran between eight and 12 feet deep. “I narrowed down what the walleye were hitting the hardest, and it was silver with a round body shape,” says the winner of the 2013 AYA International Championship. “So, I tied on a Berkley Flicker Shad—a new bait at the time—and the walleye devoured it. I broke the lure in half that day.”

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Among Toth’s favourite places to use the lure is Lake of the Prairies near Russell, Manitoba, where he says the walleye “smash the heck out of the pattern.” Another one of his Flicker Shad hot spots is the chute by the Winnipeg River’s McArthur Falls, which has produced podium-worthy fish for him. “I use this lure for big walleye,” says Toth, who also won the 2018 Red River Walleye Masters Cup with an incredible bag of three fish weighing more than 27 pounds. “It’s not a numbers game for me. When I put on a Flicker Shad, I’m going for the win.”

HOW TO FISH IT

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Toth both trolls and casts this versatile crankbait. “I love casting Flicker Shads (above) for walleye relating to shorelines,” he says. “When casting, you need a fast-action medium-light rod to absorb those heavy headshakes without losing tension on the fish.” His favourite outfit is a seven-foot spinning rod from Big Windy Custom Rods and a Quantum Accurist PT reel spooled with 10-pound-test Sufix Elite mono.

When Toth trolls a Flicker Shad, on the other hand, he relies on an eight-foot six-inch Okuma SST cranking rod and Magda Pro level-wind spooled with 14-pound braid. He completes the set-up with a five-foot-long leader of 10-pound Sufix Elite mono, which he ties directly to the lure. Toth looks for second-tier flats in eight to 12 feet of water, where he runs his Flicker Shads 150 feet behind the boat at 2.2 miles per hour.

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One of Toth’s favourite things about these lures is that they always run true. “The key is ticking it off anything on the bottom, then having it run straight again,” he says. “We all know what happens when you glance a lure off a rock or dig it into gravel—wham!”