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Late summer’s fishing slump is still haunting many anglers but don’t let that dissuade you from getting on the water. Dog days of summer do require a little different approach to see a full live-well. Keep at it, don’t lose hope, the dog days of summer are on their downward slide and almost over.
Walleye have not really changed their depth in the water column. With surface temperatures holding steady at almost 80 degrees, the walleye want cooler water. Use your electronics or topo map to locate steep transitions from shallow depths to steep drops. Then look for good cabbage cover. The cabbage in 12-20 feet of water provides great shade and cooler water for the walleye. As leeches are already starting to burrow in the mud, the night crawler bite is really picking up. But if walleye are your target, panfish, in particular bigger bluegills and crappie, will be in the same waters and will rob you of your night crawler pretty consistently. To combat that, give soft plastics a try. The most effective soft plastics have transitioned from paddle tail minnow plastics to twister tails and crawler mimics. Jig them or swim them on a jig, color will depend on the water clarity you are fishing. Also effective are trolling tactics using crawler harnesses with a bottom bouncer or deep diving tail dancers, Flicker Shads, Scatter Raps or Reef Runners.
Like we just talked about, crappies are going to be found in the same weed cover as the walleye. To target the crappie, use Thumper Jigs, Beetle Spins or most any under bladedbladed, soft plastic tipped jig cast and retrieved or jigged vertically. Get the kids out and set them up with a slip bobber set at about 10 feet over half a crawler or crappie minnow in good weed cover.
Small mouth bass can still be caught on large shiners or sucker minnow fished under a slip bobber. For a more active approach, whacky rig soft plastics or crawfish patterns on rocky flats in 8-15 feet of water. Large mouth bass are the same baits but are in the weedy bays from 3-8 feet of water. On calm, mirror-surface lake days, throw noisy top-water crank baits for explosive strikes from both large and small mouth bass.
Smaller, snake northern are abundant in weedy shallows feeding on bait fish and small panfish. They can be caught with most anything shiny and flashy you throw at them or a medium to large shiner or sucker minnow under a slip bobber. For bigger, solitary pike, go deep; 18+ feet. lo0ok for bottom structure that drops steeply and water temps are much cooler. If you prefer to troll, use large, deep diving crankbaits. You can also fish a large sucker or frozen smelt off the bottom or suspended under a large slip bobber.
