Trolling Cranks for Walleyes during Mid-Summer (Dog Days)

Summer Walleye Crankbait Trolling: Brad Hawthorne and Nick Lindner share some tips for trolling crankbaits, to push away the mid-summer blues for some respectable walleye fishing action during the daunting “dog days” of summer.

Why trolling crankbaits over spinners? Brad said that one key is finding out with your electronics how spread out fish are throughout areas. Looser schools of fish mean you need to troll and be more aggressive in covering water. If you notice your catch rate has slowed, changing up the profile of the bait can often be a major factor sometimes even more so than color.

Working cranks properly may require some specialized gear, line counters can be your best friend when dialing specific running depths and repeatedly making precise passes with a bait in the strike zone. In this video, the speed of the troll was high which isn’t uncommon in mid-summer weather where fish metabolism is high but it’s still not necessarily common to have baits trolling between 2.2-2.5 mph so make sure to adjust the trolling speed based on the mood of the fish. Slow it down when the bite slows down and incrementally speed up accordingly.

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