Roosevelt walleye

[deadyote]

Headed over to Roosevelt on a houseboat next week with the family.  Plan on being the Spokane arm most of the week, but north of 7 bays for a day or two.  Been doing too much research for walleye and have the gear all set up for what I think should work....bottom bouncers, jigs, etc.  Just a question for you guys that do it, trolling for them early and late to locate then start jigging a good idea.  Any other tips you have?  Looking for drop offs and rocks, etc.  Plus the crawdad traps will be on board also.

[baldopepper]

Walleye guys have been trolling early in about 30ft of water and then moving out to about 110ft later to jig.  Not been fast fishing but most are coming in with good numbers if they stayed with it
  Haven't seen any good size, mostly 15-16"  fish.

[HUNTNORTHWEST]

I was in the exact area last weekend. I couldn’t find the fish. Trolled and jigged.

[Longfield1]

I was there 2 weeks ago and the fishing was much different than any years previous. Had to work hard for the few fish I got. The kids had fun though but we trolled almost exclusively.

[baldopepper]

We've still been able to find the trout but sizing has been smaller than previous years.  Getting an occasional 4-5  lbs fish but they seem to always have a fin. Finding most at about 35" on the downriggersafter about 8:00. Am- some shallower action earlier. Slow troll with wormed wedding ring behind a small flasher or small popgear. 

[GASoline71]

Whenever trolling didn't work out for us, we would start jigging with blade baits, and also bottom bouncing crawdad imitations.

Gary

[outdooraddict]

fish al along the shore casting lead head jugs with curly tails, we did that when i used to camp there a lot, it caught lots of walleye and bass, was fun and kept us active as kids.  when we did a houseboat, we fished from whore or the back of the house boat casting jigs and curly tails, caught enough for a few meals,

[metlhead]

jugs and whores. Somebody needs to hop offline for a few minutes

[deadyote]

Well the walleye fishing wasn't hot, but we did end up with a few walleyes...probably 25ish in 2 days of fishing.  The smallmouth were on fire though.  I was throwing a 4" lizard with some split shot and caught 25 in about an hour an a half one evening and then at least 6 every time I went out.  We also cooked up about 30lbs of crawdads over the entire trip.  What a blast and yes we ate well.

Funny story.  The last night we were there, we went out walleye fishing and got back to the boat after dark.  We get tied up to the houseboat and I'm running the gas out of the kicker motor.  We have a 19' tiderunner with a transom for the motor and kicker.  On the left side of the transom is the gas tank for the kicker.  It is dark and we have a small light in the boat so you can see a little bit.  I have my left foot about 1' from the gas tank as I'm running the kicker and see some movement on the tank....again a foot from my left foot.  Well, it turns out a 3 foot rattlesnake decided it wanted a right on the boat.  I kicked it into the water thinking it would swim away....nope came right back.  It then proceeds to try and curl up under the head of the big motor.  So i get a hold of it by the tail and we have a tug o war until i win and it then was released about 50 feet away from the boat.

Ended up being 8 rattles on the snake, so i look back and think i should have killed it and tanned the hide.       

[Gringo31]

Not a chance he would live to tell about it 

[Angry Perch]

Gee thanks deadyote. My boat is in a garage about 150 miles from the nearest rattlesnake and I'm still going to be scared to reach under the seat this weekend!

[baldopepper]

I've cautioned lots of people on the shore around my place over there to be cautious.  Especially when they have small children wandering around gathering rocks and other souvenirs in their bare feet. Many of the westsiders don't seem aware that we have rattlers around the lake
.