Trolling Slow Death Rigs on Lake LaBelle for Walleye

Trolling Slow Death Rigs on Lake LaBelle for Walleye, is an effective
technique that puts fish in the boat and smiles on young faces!

It really is an effective tactic for covering water and catches fish when the casting proves tougher particularly during spring and summer cold fronts.

The setup for fishing slow death is rather simple:

RODS: I’ll run 4 rods on LaBelle and the best I’ve found so far are Abu Garcia Vendetta Casting Rods.
These specific rods posses a Medium action that provides a great extra
fast, soft tip for running the system effectively while keeping fish
hooked once they decide to commit. They come in lengths of 7’6″and 7′.

I employ 4 rods, 2 on each side of the boat and running the 7’6″ rods
out to the side in front of the 7 footers (angled back) on my RAM mount rod holders,
gives me just enough natural line separation that I don’t need to
utilize Off-Shore Planer Boards. The benefit of using the slow-death
presentation WITHOUT planer boards is that you can effectively cover
areas with fish and make much tighter and aggressive turns (especially
when wanting to go back to active or located fish).

REELS: The reels I have paired on the Venerates are the Pflueger President XT Low Profile Bait Cast Reels
in the 7.3:1 Gear Ratio. The 9 ball bearings make these smooth to reel
in walleyes and the star drag system is easily adjustable based on the
size structure of the fishing you’re targeting. The final benefit is
that high gear ratio which picks up 31″ of line per turn which helps get
those walleyes to the net quickly!

LINE: For the main line we have spooled up on the Presidents I run 40lb Berkley Trilene Professional Grade Braid
in the Low-vis Green color. The no stretch quality of this line is
two-fold. First you will easily see a walleye bite transmitted to the
end of your rod as well as indications of bottom content transitions
(i.e. rock to mud, sand to gravel, etc.) as the bottom bouncer will send
respective vibrations up your line to the tip of your rod. Secondly, if
you should incur some hang ups of your bottom bouncer in the rocky
bottom content of LaBelle, simply place your thumb tightly on the spool
while the rod is still in the holder and 98% of the time the snag simply
pulls the bouncer out with no need to stop the progress of your boat.

The braided main line is tied to a Berkley Cross-Lok Snap/Swivel that clips onto the bottom bouncer.

BOTTOM BOUNCER:
Bottom bouncers in your system come in a variety of colors, but on Lake
LaBelle we’ve found the best action comes in conjunction with Orange or
Chartreuse or bottom bouncers like Northland’s Rock-Runner Bottom Bouncer that come in a combination of Orange/Chartreuse Colors (aka Sunrise Color)!

Since they come in a variety of weights, the general rule of thumb when
slow death fishing on LaBelle is to use 1oz for every 10 feet of depth.
For example:

Weight/Depth

1/2oz-1-5 feet of water

1oz-10 feet of water

2oz-20 feet of water

LEADER:
The leader that runs off the bottom bouncer is 3-4 feet back from the
bottom bouncer. Many people will use 8-10lb. fluorocarbon due to it’s
ability to refract light and appear virtually invisible to the fish. Not
a bad benefit in clear water like LaBelle! It also offers abrasion
resistance to the rocky bottom, zebra muscles, etc. Fluorocarbon is also
great when running slow death using live bait, especially
night-crawlers.

Most of the time, however, small perch and “pesky” yellow bass tend to
pick at and even steal your live bait when fishing LaBelle, so I opt to
use artificial presentations, on Berkley 6-8 lb XT monofilament line.
The monofilament paired with artificial bait allows the most action
while pulling slow death. Monofilament has a natural tendency to “float”
while the properties of fluorocarbon cause it to sink. Of course with
artificials I want the most action I can get!

The artificial bait I’ve found most success with is Berkley Gulp! 3″ Killer Crawlers
in a variety of colors while fishing slow death with clients. Using
Killer Crawlers will benefit you by maximizing fishing time as opposed
to constantly rebaiting.

HOOK: Berkley Fusion19 Slow-Turn hooks are
the key to presenting your live bait or artificial presentations to
walleyes effectively on LaBelle. The exaggerated bend in the hook is
responsible for the slow turn action that walleye can’t resist. Many
other hooks offer this action, but the needle point “SlickSet Coating”
that the Fusion19 hooks possess and the innovative bait keeper lead to
easier hook penetration and higher holding power once the fish has
decided to commit! With the 3″ Killer Crawlers I like to use the Size 2.

If you’d like to learn more about how to set-up and deploy this tactic
on Lake LaBelle to effectively target walleyes, don’t hesitate to contact me today
and get scheduled for some slow-death show-and-tell! As a local guide,
I’m an open book and pride myself on showing clients the ins and outs of
how to be successful in order to make their future fishing trips even
more memorable!