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They are tearing them up at Red Wing Minnesota pool number 4 limits of good eaters on Dubuque 3-way ridge tip with minnows with a few big ones hitting on blade baits

Big fish came calling last Sunday as I set up in deep water and jigged with frozen shiner minnows with some pretty amazing results for a quick 2 hour trip.. Check it out!

https://soundcloud.com/ncor/ncor-5-4-joe-henry Lake of the Woods is just laying there waiting for us to get out on Saturday. Joe Henry from LOW Tourism figures it ought to be a barn burner Here is the first of 85 new and unique NCOR Podcasts

Last entry I talked about using cadence changes to trigger fish and using the sweep method to trigger neutral fish. Today, I will talk about another similar method which is burning baits across flats and ripping. As summer water temps continue to rise many walleyes will begin to transition from post spawn staging areas on shallow weed edges to the deeper edge of the weedline near the first break into the basin. In many lakes this will put you into the 12 to 15' range. This is prime habitat for a ripping retrieve. Typically I will fish this edge with rattling raps or ripping raps using a 7' medium action spinning rod with the reel spooled up with 20# braid. If there is a large population of pike or muskies I will beef up to 50# braid on a 7' medium heavy rod with a bait caster. The heavier setup decreases the odds of bite offs. Natural shad or bluegill is a good starting point for lure color in many lakes but sometimes the firetiger and perch colored baits will out perform the lighter colors. The ripping method is fairly simple, make long casts parallel to the weed edges and out into the basin, let the bait fall to the bottom on slack line and once it reaches bottom begin a series of sharper sweeps pulling the bait ahead 3-4' at a time and letting it plummet to the bottom before ripping it up and ahead another 3-4'. One of the keys to this method is watching the line for any sharp taps or watching for the bait to stop falling prematurely before reaching bottom. When either of these things occur sweep the rod up and set the hook. It becomes fairly easy to tell a strike as they tend to be reaction strikes and the fish really pound the bait. This method is aggressive and will trigger neutral and negative fish into reaction bites when they would typically not pay any attention to a bait presented with a normal straight retrieve. Incidentally, this is fast becoming a favorite way to fish jigging raps during open water where #7 and #9 size jigging raps have come to find a niche. Burning baits for walleyes seems a bit counter intuitive because many walleye techniques are slow finesse presentations like bottom bouncers and spinners or drifting live bait rigs but when the water temps come up so does a fishes metabolism and they are feeding regular and often. Burning is great technique along shallower weedlines and sand flats during the summer using lipless rattle baits and spinner baits for walleyes and this is the simplest presentation yet. Simply make a long cast, count the bait down and reel it quickly back to the boat. This method will allow you to cover alot of water and trigger active fish found along the inside weedlines and the shallow sand flats adjascent to them. The key is getting the bait moving just fast enough that it occassionally ticks bottom. Once bottom contact is made raise the rod tip slightly and increase the speed of your retrieve slowly lowering the rod as the bait moves closer to the boat to keep it in the strike zone. This type of retrieve will cause reaction strikes from bottom hugging fish well into July. I like to work 5/16th and 1/2 oz baits using this technique and you will want a reel with a high retrieve rate for this to be effective like a shimano symetre 3000 or Garcia C4. Good luck and tightlines! Tunrevir~

In my last entry I talked about changing up the retrieves and adding pauses to trigger neutral fish in cooler water. Today I am going to talk about speeding up the cadence to trigger bites. As previously mentioned, many of us fall into the same retrieve we have always used when working crank baits because we are creatures of habit and will try to use patterns that have worked for us in the past. Water temps at the surface are in the mid seventies at this time and this is a great time to begin using pulling and snapping retrieves and ramping up the speed to trigger reaction strikes from fish. This technique involves using lipless rattle baits, jigging raps and rippin raps and even spoons, and this can be a killer way to work spinner baits for walleyes! A pulling retrieve involves casting the bait out and letting it fall to the bottom with the rod pointed at roughly 2 o clock. When the lure touches down you make a slow sweeping pull to the 11 o clock position moving the bait up in a darting forward action. lower the rod tip back to 2 o clock and let the bait fall close to the bottom and repeat the 2-11 o clock drag keeping the lure bounding along but not quite touching bottom. Often as the lure begins to speed up, or just as you start to sweep the rod you will feel the fish hit. Think of this pulling retrieve like a gentle hopping of the lure from within inches of the bottom to roughly 2-3' above the bottom on the sweep. It takes a bit of practice to keep the lure riding just above the bottom as it hip hops along. I like to work this type of retrieve with either a 7' medium action rod and a high speed reel spooled with braided line so I can stay in contact with the lure and sweep up slack line quickly. Most often I use a 7' spinning rod paired with a shimano symetre reel spooled up with 15-20# braid or when working heavier baits a 7' rod with an Abu Garcia C4 reel spooled with 50# braid. I like to tie direct to the lure with the braid most of the time which gives me better feel of what the lure is doing and if it has fouled with weeds or debris. You can add a flourocarbon leader in clearer bodies of water for a bit stealthier approach. Since this is a quicker cadence and retrieve fish often are reacting to the fleeing bait and it does not give them time to inspect the lure or shy away from the line. I like to use this technique on large sand flats near standing weedlines and have had success using this method on large flats 20' deep. Try a pulling retrieve with some lipless rattle baits, jigging raps or spoons and spinners the next time you are out, you may well be surprised by the number of fish you catch! Next week I will talk about a ripping retrieve for crankbaits. Tightlines! Tunrevir~