Summer walleyes can be an enigma. During the spring and fall they are in predictable locations. Post-spawn finds them clustered off river mouths where they spawned, or gathered on shallow reefs and structure close by to recuperate and feed. In the fall, they move into the shallows again to bulk up before winter.

Mark Brumbaugh caught this fine summer walleye by trolling a big stick bait on a planer board. Photo by Dave Rose.

In between, walleyes can be tough to find, especially in large, expansive basins. One reason is because of the sheer amount of water you're dealing with. Walleye schools scatter far and wide in the summer months. Compounding the problem of finding them is that they like to suspend, whether it be to find more comfortable water temperatures or to shadow pelagic schools of baitfish. Obviously, it pays to cover water when searching for the nomadic walleyes and no method is better for that than trolling.

"Trolling is good wherever you go," shared walleye pro Bill St. Peter. He further stated that no matter what type of lake an angler is fishing, "trolling is going to be a good way to cover water and find fish. But you can't go about it haphazardly. Speed is really important. It's surprising how much faster you can go sometimes and catch walleyes, and how slow you need to go to get a bite."

St. Peter said he often finds himself creeping along at 1.0 mph to catch walleyes, especially when using live bait. He does that by watching the ground speed on his GPS.

"The angle of your line can be a good indicator too, but the GPS is going to be the most accurate. You usually don't have a lot of current to deal with when you're walleye fishing, so the GPS will give you a pretty true reading."

St. Peter said he routinely trolls at 1.1 to 1.4 mph when using crawler harnesses and slightly faster when using crankbaits. But that doesn't mean he won't kick the speed up to 2.5 to 3.0 if the slow-troll isn't working. Faster speeds mean switching to speed-forgiving stick baits and crankbaits.

You can get even more precise speed-readings by using a devise that is designed specifically to measure how fast you're trolling. Charter captains who operate on exceptionally large waters rely heavily on electronics that gives them speed and temperature on the surface and below. The Moore Sub-Troll 900 gives precise, accurate readings that can help you fine-tune your trolling presentation. Surprisingly, few walleye anglers use it. You can get more information on the Moore Sub-Troll 900 at www.moorelectronics.com.

"You have to use counter reels," declared St. Peter. Line-counter reels like Cabela's Depthmaster Gold, Diawa Sealine SG17LCA and SG27LCW, Okuma Clarion LC and Diawa ACCUDEPTH Plus are great choices for exact, precise measure of trolling line lengths. St. Peter couldn't stress enough how important it is to know exactly how much line you have out when setting a trolling pattern.

"You really can't be precise if you have different kinds of reels, different size lines, and reels that are not filled to capacity. It's impossible to know exactly how much line you have out when running multiple lines and what you need to do to duplicate a productive trolling pattern.

"Different size lines make a difference," St. Peter continued. "It's not the poundage difference, but the difference in diameter that's the main thing. You need to use line that's the same diameter so lures dive the same depth with the same amount of line out."

A great aid for determining how deep a particular lure or weight/bait combination will dive are the dive charts compiled in "Precision Trolling -- Big Water Edition." The book lists dive curve charts for planers, lead-core line, weights and more. Other editions list dive information for a variety of lures. Using the charts can give a better idea of exactly what depth your lures are running. The book's pages are laminated for on-the-water use. For more information visit www.precisionangling.com.

St. Peter said he typically runs four rods or more when setting up a trolling pattern to search for walleyes. He spots one rod shallow, one rod deep and two in between. The lines are run off in-line planer boards to cover more water, put baits in front of suspended fish, and to minimize tangles.