Casting plastics/cranks for Walleyes

[coombia21]

I have fished plastics for bass and sometime for lindy rigs but never for casting. Can anybody give me tips for casting for eyes. I have done mostly drifting and jigging for them and this year I want to get into casting for eyes. Any tips will be appreciated.

[John Mickish]

Fish them like you would for bass. You know fish, somedays that want it just barely moving and some days they want it flying. You will have to experiment to see exactly how they want it that day.

The best places I have found are shallow wind blown rocks. The bigger the rocks the better, out to maybe 10'. Current swept rocks are good too.

[Stick in Mud]

I've spent A LOT of time casting for walleyes in rivers, but not so much in lakes. The only time I really bust it out is either 1) later in the fall, aggressively jigging a Gulp minnow (or other brand), or 2) when it's windy out, especially if the wind's been pounding the same shoreline/point/reef/etc. for a few days.

One night last fall I found a very active pod of fish and instead of trolling through it--wasting time turning around, letting out 125 ft of line, reeling them in, etc.--I just anchored up and threw Shad Raps at them. It worked surprisingly well.

[trappingaddiction]

I have good success casting cranks for walleyes. I find that casting towards wind blown shorelines, over the top of weedy flats and edges of weedlines (inside and outside edge) as well as any in shore structure will often times catch walleyes, as well as other species, when other tactics are failing to produce. Once spring turns into summer, very few people will continue to fish for walleyes on several of the lakes I typically will fish these summer walleyes on. I'm not sure if this is due to people thinking walleyes are not worth targeting in these small, and relatively shallow lakes in the summer, or just don't know how to target them. The people that are out on these lakes are often fishing too deep of water with other tactics and having limited success with walleyes. My best tip is to not be afraid to look for shallow water for midsummer walleyes (less than 12 FOW). On murky lakes, I will often start with a fast retrieve with something noisy and flashy, such as a Firetiger Rattle Trap and find out what works from there. On clearer lakes I will still find good success with Rattle type lures, but find have good success with more natural colors, such as Bluegill, but will always keep the brighter colors around as they will often work good as well. When others are struggling, this will often be the ticket to putting some walleyes in the boat during the "dog days of summer", as well as other bonus species.

[tunrevir]

Good info so far! Casting cranks and plastics is one of my favorite ways to fish for eyes. Like trapping addiction said people often fish to deep late spring early summer when walleyes are still shallow and on sand flats and weedlines. This past year I had a great deal of success using the micro cranks along shallow weedlines in 6-7 feet of water, slowly working along the edge of the weeds casting both parallel and fancasting the sand flats. You will increase your odds of catching eyes if you fish during the hour or so before dark but plenty of weedline fish are available and will hit during the middle of the day. I find late May into early July to be best for working weedlines when the fish are schooled up and not yet scattered. But fancasting cranks can also be good when the fish scatter. I like to use twister tails and shimmy shad with clothespin spinners when water is cooler and fish them slow and just slow roll them along the weedlines just above the bottom, when the water warms I go to a slowly retrieved crank either a countdown or shad styled bait and when the water warms I increase my retrieve speed slightly and continue to work shad bodied baits and move into the lipless rattle baits. You will be surprised at how hard eyes will smoke a crankbait and it is a hwole lot more fun then live bait rigging.

Tunrevir~