Erie Fishing

[svukovics]

Hey guys, i'm new to this forum and as well to erie fishing. I just purchased a boat, 20' doral, and am using it to fish on erie. I have been doing some trolling and jigging for bass with no complaints. Finding i love the perch coloured shad rap at 20'.

 

Anyways i was interested in getting setup for fishing walleyes in deeper water and was wondering if anyone had gear suggestions. I've heard alot of different likes and dislikes, planers, riggers, dipsy divers... could use some real input though as i don't want to waste money investing in the wrong stuff.

 

Thanks

[Hellfish]

Im just getting into fishing erie walleye myself and i picked up a little bit of everything cause you have to find out what the fish actually want, i got some dipseys, jets and inline boards they are all pretty important. With jets if you find fish in 65ft of water but are only in 20-35ft down u want to use jets but if they are in 50ft of water u want dipseys and pending on the number of the spread you have out its alot easier with the inline boards to keep track of it all. So really i would say just get as familiar as you can with everything available and what other people are using and go from there.

[MrMike]

Canon Mag10 down rigger cant be beat

[Hellfish]

theyre nice but certainly not necessary.

[jwl]

I would go with some of Hellfish's suggestions, often the walleye shy away from the rigger because they are too close to the boat..you might get a good haul of sheephead on them..lol, you will get walleye, but you will get more using dipsies as they run a bit farther from the sides/behind the boat as opposed to straight down, and also inline boards, or big planer boards off a mast as this will put the baits well out from the back of the boat and spread out depending on how many lines you run...of course you need rod holder for all the rods as well.

 

it is also handy to have good reels with line counters on them too for running the inline boards and dipsies, this way when you run multiple lines, you can start at say 150-200 ft off the boat, clip on an inline board for example them let out a bunch more line...then stagger the lenghts you have the boards out...this way your inlines will run in a "V" on both sides of the boat, and if you get a hit the boards will stray inward toward the middle and out of the pack. Then you can run the dipsies becaue they will be closer to the boat and deeper. You really have to get out there and experiment to see how everything runs all together and to get a good set up going that will have less chances of fouling up all along each other...then from there you don't need much more than a decent assortment of worm harnesses, and some body baits to try. make sure to run long leads from the jets and dipsies to not shay away the fish..even upwards of 10-12 foot leads...long handled net comes in handy for landing the fish this way. It would really help to find someone you can get out with that has experience fishing this way..it's takes a while to set it all up and get a hnag of how it runs, and how to tell when you have a fish on.

 

If you only planning on running one inline board say off each side of the boat , it is pretty hard to tell at time when you get a hit..so it is a good choice to use the boards with the little strike indicator flag that trips when you get a good hit.

 

Colour is not always a huge factor when the fishing is on...but for Erie you can't go wrong with yellows,chartreusess,tigers,bright pinks,watermelons for 20-40feet of water for your baits,jest,dipsies ect, for deeper go with the chrome blues,purples, dark greens for example.

[Bitsmith2k]

welcome aboard big steve!

 

jwl thats alot of good info.. we'll put it to use on sat..

[MrMike]

Good luck and if your new to Erie keep an eye on the weather It can blowup hard and fast

[svukovics]

thanks for all the suggestions guys, will definitely put it to good use.

 

hope to have some pics for sunday!

 

cheers

[Billy Bob]

My Dipsy Divers out fish my downriggers 3-1 for walleye on Lake Erie because they get down and out to the side of the boat.