John Kelley

I have used this technique all over the country, but not on the Saint Lawrence River. It works just about anywhere and everywhere I have been, I just have never fished the Saint Lawrence.It has worked for me on the Missouri, the Mississippi, hundreds of lakes across the US and Canada, though. I think I would stick to trolling techniques on big water like Erie or lake Ontario, unless you have some nice little pieces of structure to fish. Open water eyes tend to be more of a roaming fish, chasing the large baits schools, like all the other predators. In rivers with high current, I prefer to use either lures, or heavy jigs with leeches or large minnows, and no floats. More of a smaller location technique. I have fished some big lakes like Mille Lacs on some smaller structure effectively, with slip bobbers. Just experiment around, and find out what works for you. Thanks.

I have fished with slip bobbers for years and years, starting back in the late 70's. I have some tips for you that might help you avoid some of the trouble I went through. First, use a quality slip bobber, with a metal grommet at the top of the tube. If you do not do this, your line will eventually wear a groove through the plastic tube at the top of your float, the line will get caught in it every time you cast, and the line will not pass through it. Second, NO walleye can resist a Jumbo leech swimming 3-6" off bottom under a slip bobber. I preferred to use them with a glow in the dark, 1/4 ounce fireball style jig-head. The jighead is a two-fold attack. First there is the added color and action. The most important thing I like about using a jighead over a plain hook and split shot, is that the jighead will not foul up on the line during a cast, or on the way to the bottom, like a plain hook with split shots 10" above them have the tendency to do. Third, actively work your float up to, around, and near good structure. Once it arrives there, reel it in and re-cast it. Don't just cast it out blindly and wait for it to go down. Fourth, jig or twitch your float every once in awhile. Sometimes a walleye is down there, just staring at your leech, and just needs a little nudge to make it grab it. A slight jigging motion upward, or a slight twitch can be that trigger. A favorite float technique of mine is to anchor about 30' upwind of a nice break-line, point, or sharp dropping edge of an underwater hump or sunken island . Then let your leech drift right up and onto the top of the structure. Usually the float will not even make it to the top, before it is snatched by a walleye. Adjust your stopper, so that your bait is only a few inches above the top of the structure you will be fishing, and you will be golden. This works very well on sunken roadbeds and rock-piles, as well. I have caught untold thousands of walleyes this way. Hope this helps

They are great pike and musky spoons for sure. I don't use them for salmon trolling. They are made for casting.

I have had really good luck on both Lake Superior and Lake Michigan this spring with the same depths on my my riggers, and pulling the orange 00 Luhr Jensen Herring dodgers with blue peanut flies, for cohos. Also done very well on 3 color and 75' copper rods with the same dodgers and flies off the boards. seems like every time I would see fish in the 20' and under depth, I would get bit, too. This was in water from 40'-250' deep. Those cohos always seem to be near the surface. I miss those bigger, Lake Ontario cohos, though!!