Willard Bay May 21, 2025

[dubob]

This is my story, and I’m sticking to it.  

I went to Willard Bay yesterday with a friend to attempt to coax a walleye or three to come home with us for dinner.  We were on the water fishing at 7:30 AM.  Bottom bouncers and cranks were presented.  The speed on the Minn Kota Ulterra Quest was set at 1.2 to start.  I varied the speed between 1.0 & 1.4 throughout the day.  Hit most of the usual areas and marked fish everywhere.  We fished until 2:00PM.  The score was Fish = 7 (SDR & LDR) and fishermen = 3.  All 3 we kept were in the 15/16” range.  We used the Northland Butterfly Blade Super Death Rig Single Hook (rainbow) modified with yellow orange Scheels Outfitters Rig Float baited with a half a crawler.  We observed several bite attempts of 3 seconds or less.

The dozen plus crank changes produced zero hits.

Sorry, no fish porn for this trip.

PS: The prop pitch change from 17” to 15” increased my rpm’s from 5200 to 6200.  Top end speed is about 1 mph slower.  The Drotto boat latch worked as advertised.  The second set of upright load guides worked to keep the boat centered better during retrieval.  Forgot to test the Vessel View module attached to the Mercury 115 Pro XS.

[RockyRaab2]

You'll love the Vessel View, Bob. It records even when you don't have the phone app on.

[Mildog]

Sounds like you had similar results to our Tuesday trip
It’s gojng to turn back on soon

[obifishkenobi]

This is my story, and I’m sticking to it.  

I went to Willard Bay yesterday with a friend to attempt to coax a walleye or three to come home with us for dinner.  We were on the water fishing at 7:30 AM.  Bottom bouncers and cranks were presented.  The speed on the Minn Kota Ulterra Quest was set at 1.2 to start.  I varied the speed between 1.0 & 1.4 throughout the day.  Hit most of the usual areas and marked fish everywhere.  We fished until 2:00PM.  The score was Fish = 7 (SDR & LDR) and fishermen = 3.  All 3 we kept were in the 15/16” range.  We used the Northland Butterfly Blade Super Death Rig Single Hook (rainbow) modified with yellow orange Scheels Outfitters Rig Float baited with a half a crawler.  We observed several bite attempts of 3 seconds or less.

The dozen plus crank changes produced zero hits.

Sorry, no fish porn for this trip.

PS: The prop pitch change from 17” to 15” increased my rpm’s from 5200 to 6200.  Top end speed is about 1 mph slower.  The Drotto boat latch worked as advertised.  The second set of upright load guides worked to keep the boat centered better during retrieval.  Forgot to test the Vessel View module attached to the Mercury 115 Pro XS.

My thought is why so slow? this time of year the fish are very aggressive and there is an advantage to just covering a lot of ground and picking them up where you find them. I'm running 1.8-2.2 mph and there are folks also catching them at higher speeds. That range is pulling bottom bouncers and cranks at the same time, if I was just pulling Cranks I would be going even faster 2.5-3-5mph.

[dubob]

My thought is why so slow?

To keep the 2 oz BB weight on the bottom without having to reel in hundreds of feet of line to boat the fish.

[Paddler]

This is my story, and I’m sticking to it.  

I went to Willard Bay yesterday with a friend to attempt to coax a walleye or three to come home with us for dinner.  We were on the water fishing at 7:30 AM.  Bottom bouncers and cranks were presented.  The speed on the Minn Kota Ulterra Quest was set at 1.2 to start.  I varied the speed between 1.0 & 1.4 throughout the day.  Hit most of the usual areas and marked fish everywhere.  We fished until 2:00PM.  The score was Fish = 7 (SDR & LDR) and fishermen = 3.  All 3 we kept were in the 15/16” range.  We used the Northland Butterfly Blade Super Death Rig Single Hook (rainbow) modified with yellow orange Scheels Outfitters Rig Float baited with a half a crawler.  We observed several bite attempts of 3 seconds or less.

The dozen plus crank changes produced zero hits.

Sorry, no fish porn for this trip.

PS: The prop pitch change from 17” to 15” increased my rpm’s from 5200 to 6200.  Top end speed is about 1 mph slower.  The Drotto boat latch worked as advertised.  The second set of upright load guides worked to keep the boat centered better during retrieval.  Forgot to test the Vessel View module attached to the Mercury 115 Pro XS.

My thought is why so slow? this time of year the fish are very aggressive and there is an advantage to just covering a lot of ground and picking them up where you find them. I'm running 1.8-2.2 mph and there are folks also catching them at higher speeds. That range is pulling bottom bouncers and cranks at the same time, if I was just pulling Cranks I would be going even faster 2.5-3-5mph.

I agree.  Most guys I talk to express surprise when I tell them I troll 2.6-2.8MPH.  Just because walleye don't fight that much doesn't mean they can't catch a crankbait at 2.8MPH or faster.  They sure go fast when I throw them back in the water.  Going faster also causes more vibration to attract them from distance.  It may be beneficial to slow down when the water is very turbid, but I'm not sure about that.  700RPM is idle in my boat, and I burn 0.3GPH.  That's a happy speed for my boat.  

According to the book, "Precision Trolling", most crankbaits run at the same depth at given distance back between 1MPH and 3MPH.  The only indication for going slower in my mind is when one is bottom bouncing.

What's SDR and LDR?

Sounds like your 15P prop is just about perfect.

[MWScott72]

I don’t think speed would have helped much last Tuesday or Wednesday. The weather pattern that went through over the weekend into Monday just shut them down. We were out Tuesday using the same stuff (and more) that worked the week before and we netted a whole two fish over 7 hours on the water. Started out trolling 1.3 to 1.5 and got all the way up to 2-1 to 2.3 mph. Didn’t seem to matter - the fish just didn’t want to play.

[wiperhunter2]

What's SDR and LDR?

LDR= long distance release
SDR= short distance release

[wiperhunter2]

I don’t think speed would have helped much last Tuesday or Wednesday.  The weather pattern that went through over the weekend into Monday just shut them down.  We were out Tuesday using the same stuff (and more) that worked the week before and we netted a whole two fish over 7 hours on the water.  Started out trolling 1.3 to 1.5 and got all the way up to 2-1 to 2.3 mph.  Didn’t seem to matter - the fish just didn’t want to play.

How deep were you fishing? Were you using shallow diving lures, like SR5? When we were out last week, we kept using deeper diving lures or BBers but just before we left, we finally switched over to 5's and promptly caught two.

[chubby chaser]

This is my story, and I’m sticking to it.  

I went to Willard Bay yesterday with a friend to attempt to coax a walleye or three to come home with us for dinner.  We were on the water fishing at 7:30 AM.  Bottom bouncers and cranks were presented.  The speed on the Minn Kota Ulterra Quest was set at 1.2 to start.  I varied the speed between 1.0 & 1.4 throughout the day.  Hit most of the usual areas and marked fish everywhere.  We fished until 2:00PM.  The score was Fish = 7 (SDR & LDR) and fishermen = 3.  All 3 we kept were in the 15/16” range.  We used the Northland Butterfly Blade Super Death Rig Single Hook (rainbow) modified with yellow orange Scheels Outfitters Rig Float baited with a half a crawler.  We observed several bite attempts of 3 seconds or less.

The dozen plus crank changes produced zero hits.

Sorry, no fish porn for this trip.

PS: The prop pitch change from 17” to 15” increased my rpm’s from 5200 to 6200.  Top end speed is about 1 mph slower.  The Drotto boat latch worked as advertised.  The second set of upright load guides worked to keep the boat centered better during retrieval.  Forgot to test the Vessel View module attached to the Mercury 115 Pro XS.

My thought is why so slow? this time of year the fish are very aggressive and there is an advantage to just covering a lot of ground and picking them up where you find them. I'm running 1.8-2.2 mph and there are folks also catching them at higher speeds. That range is pulling bottom bouncers and cranks at the same time, if I was just pulling Cranks I would be going even faster 2.5-3-5mph.

I agree.  Most guys I talk to express surprise when I tell them I troll 2.6-2.8MPH.  Just because walleye don't fight that much doesn't mean they can't catch a crankbait at 2.8MPH or faster.  They sure go fast when I throw them back in the water.  Going faster also causes more vibration to attract them from distance.  It may be beneficial to slow down when the water is very turbid, but I'm not sure about that.  700RPM is idle in my boat, and I burn 0.3GPH.  That's a happy speed for my boat.  

According to the book, "Precision Trolling", most crankbaits run at the same depth at given distance back between 1MPH and 3MPH.  The only indication for going slower in my mind is when one is bottom bouncing.

What's SDR and LDR?

Sounds like your 15P prop is just about perfect.

walleye newbie here... when running these deep diver crank baits, you're trying to get them close to the bottom correct?  Do you use any weights to get them down or just let them do the work based on the depth they run?