Target Walleye/Ice email

Fall sand lovers, Water temp crank selection, Fish flop Friday

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Today’s Top 5

Gravel lizards of the week!

Can’t wait to see the caliber of fish NWT pros throw up next week on Lake of the Woods — it’s been kickin’ out the BIGS! No doubt we’ll see a pile of mud melons like Stephen Roller’s leadcore giant that T-boned a #7 “hot flash” Rapala Shad Rap:

Jordan Osborn stuck this 28.5″ eastern WA gravel lizard running #7 Berkley Flicker Shads along an 18′ weedline. “She was released to keep doing her thing.” = #Stout

Proud dad moment! Kris Gaune’s 10-yr-old daughter Willow landed this 28-incher on a Northland Fire-Ball Jig — working the edge of a rockpile in 28′:

Greg Lensert was snappin’ a white fluke in 5′ when he cracked this WY 29.5-incher:

Base your fall walleye crankbaits on water temp.

Hey fall trollers — water temps are finally starting to dip! Instead of tying on any ol’ crankbait, you can use the water temp to tell you which exact styles to run.

Brad Hawthorne’s logged a zillion hours pulling cranks in the fall, so of course it’s the first thing I nagged him about when I had the chance to hop in his boat. Few things:

> He always starts early fall with #5 Rapala Shad Raps ‘cuz they’ve caught more fish than any other bait in his boat…especially while water temps are 60-65. Bump up to a #6 or #7 as temps reach the lower end of that scale.

> Once the water hits 57-62 — and the weather is cooperating — he’ll put on BIG ol’ bent-lip #9 Shallow Shad Raps. Everything is going shallow and putting the feedbag on, including perch this size….

> Original Jointed Minnows are one of his favorite overlooked fall trolling bait when temps are in the 50-57 range and fish are on the chew. They run 5-7′ out the package, but Brad will pinch on a small splitshot up above the bait to get ’em down to the 8-10′ range.

> Frigid temps: Original Floaters are tough to beat. Brad’s caught fish on ’em in water as cold as 42 degrees. #PolarPlungeStatus

S’more details straight from Mr. Fall Cranky himself in this vid. Didn’t notice at the time he was wearing a play button mask….

Fish-flop Friday is here…

…and it’s only funny when it happens to someone else lol:

This one knew Insta user @my_boreal_life was gonna release it…into the grease:

Not just a walleye thing:

Btw — check out #FishFlopFriday over on the Instagrammy if you ever need a laugh…it’s trout heavy, but the facial expressions are priceless.

Devils Lake walleyes have different-lookin’ peepers?

Swear you can tell if a fish was caught outta Devils Lake, ND just by lookin’ at their eyeballs…know that sounds ridiculous but I’m serious!

Can’t tell you how many times I’ve been scrolling through the newsfeed…seen a walter who’s peepers have a shiny copper look to ’em…and called out it’s a Devils Lake fish before ever reading the post.

Exhibit 1A: Check the blinkers on these bruisers guided by Tanner Thompson outta Woodland Resort:

“The lips of an angel.”

Not song lyrics, but what Julian Pinney said about this Provo River, UT lip-smacker he whacked on a “hot mustard muddler” Rapala X-Rap:

Wasn’t sure I had heard of the “hot mustard muddler” color so had to look it up:

Whoops…wrong pic. Dangit Google. Let’s try that again:

News

1. MN: NWT championship hits LOTW next week.

That’s Lake of the Woods and happenin’ Sept 5-7.

2. MB: Northern Manitoba Walleye Championship…

…happenin’ Sept 2 at Paint Lake Provincial Park. The only live-release team walleye tourney in MB’s Northern Region. Still a few spots left to get in on the $30K in cash + prizes.

3. You seen the new Lund 1675 Adventure yet?Affordable! Because you don’t need a $70K boat to crack your new PB walldawg…[heart-eyes emoji]:

4. Garmin partners with Arrow Mapping…

…bringing LakeVü HD to paper maps. Though I’d hardly call ’em “paper” when you can do this without ruining ’em:

5. Mega Okuma video contest goin’ down.

Wanna know what inspires you to hit the water and giving away thousands of buckaroos worth o’ Okuma goods. Deets here on how to enter — lookin’ forward to seeing the vids!

6. Favorite’s making white socks look sexy again.

Those “white socks” come with the budget-friendly ($49.99) Favorite White Bird spinning rod.

7. New free Lowrance updates.

For HDS Carbon, HDS Gen3 and Elite-Ti units.

8. Navionics update now lets you…

…highlight multiple depth ranges on yer mobile phone:

9. So WTHeck are planer boards anyway?

We have all different skill levels, so if you’re not exactly sure what an Off Shore Tackle Planer Board is — or when you should use ’em — this Noah Humfeld blog post will give you a nice rundown.

Side note — planer boards work for jumbo perch too….

10. If you’re a leadcore dragger…

…you oughta check out the Phantom Lures Banshee — this underwater vid does a better job of explaining its action than I can:

See all of Phantom’s baits underwater on their YouTube channel.

11. IA: Zeebz found in Storm Lake.

12. Great Lakes: Grass carp in 3 lakes, will be in the rest.

MotorGuide Xi5 Giveaway!

Yup, this is real life…we’re GIVING AWAY a MotorGuide Xi5 trolling motor! A 105-lb thrust (36v, 60″ shaft) walleye-chasin’ machine!! Has Pinpoint GPS to keep you locked RIGHT on the spot — you’re welcome, control freaks. Click here to enter — good luck!!!

What makes the PinPoint GPS so good? Has an accelerometer in the motor that takes the speed of the boat into consideration. Basically when you hit anchor, the motor will calculate the speed of the boat when approaching the anchor point and will stop on the spot…rather than overshooting and navigating back.

Have a new 72″ shaft version for you big-water wranglers = motor doesn’t come outta the water in massive rollers.

Tip of the Day

This can be frustrating time of year to track down a limit of tasties. Fish are on the move, but they’ll be migrating to predictable areas and eventually schooling up hard.

Ted Takasaki, Scott Richardson and Greg Bohn combined forces to bring you some of their fall-transition secrets. Full write-up here, few excerpts below:

> Baitfish will only stay in weeds as long as they’re very green. Once weeds start to die off…baitfish and walleyes start to leave those shallow-water weed areas.

> If you’re fishing summer spots and they aren’t there, start fishing the sand. As the transition is getting underway, it’s still common to find walleyes in 15′ or less.

> They start to move out to more open-water areas at first…sliding out around deep water: sand bars that come out from shore and drop to deeper water, sand flats, sand points, and sand humps.

> Walleyes begin to move deeper as water temps drop toward turnover (begins at 62 degrees or so). Instead of looking for fish to be on top of structures, look deeper.

> They will be in spots like the sharper breaks or on mid-lake humps that top out at perhaps 20′, rather than 15′, or in holes in soft-bottom flats where depth drops from 15′ to 20′.

> Walleyes become more selective about where they stage. They generally locate on a spot-on-a-spot. For example, if they’re on a mid-lake hump with scattered boulders, they will be on the boulders. If all rock, look for the patch of sand. If all sand, look for the rockpile.

> Because more and more walleyes show up on these few spots, more and more of the lake holds no fish. It’s easy to be skunked if you don’t pay attention to subtle differences on the structure.

Keep reading the full write-up here for WAY more info and even the specific baits these fellas use to target these fish.

Meme of the Day

Been there, continue to do that. Lol #priorities

Today’s ‘Eye Candy

Those Yo-Zuri Hydro Minnow LCs (long cast) lookin’ like a snack:

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Who is Target Walleye/Ice
Target Walleye/Ice — walleye during open water and all species during hardwater — is brought to you by Al and Ron Lindner, Jim Kalkofen, Brett McComas and other diehard fish-nuts like you! #fishheads
Brett McComas is the main man for Target Walleye/Ice. He was discovered in Brainerd, MN after years of wondering how in the heck people break into the fishing biz. He’s in it now, but still can’t answer that question…. Brett is one of those guys who majored in marketing, only because there was no such thing as a “fishing degree” at the time…. Get him at brett@targetwalleye.com

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