Lesser Slave Lake

[M4verick]

Im gonna be taking a trip up to Lesser Slave Lake at the End of the month. I understand that the walleye will have moved off to deeper water and we gotta use deep divers to catch em. Any other tips, hints or suggestions for success? How has the fishing been up there this year?

Thanks!

[Hooker]

If they are in deeper water now (which makes sense) they will likely be straight out from the public beach north of the Lesser Slave river outlet. Use the two flags as a guide. They are probably in the 15 foot water. If you are using a dipsy diver and trolling then may I suggest my favorite Walleye lure which is a 4 inch Williams Wabbler, gold and silver with a hammered surface. They were awesome for my brother and me when we were up the third week in July. It's harder to do the sweep and drop with a dipsy diver tied on but you may be able to. We used that method and had strike after strike and fish after fish. Good luck and have fun. Hope the winds are kind to you.:)

[Cal]

Not sure about the lake but the river has sure slowed down, pike still biting good though. I have all but quit fishing any time other than between the hours of 8-11 pm as if I can put myself in the right spot I can catch more fish in one hour then than I can the whole rest of the day. Thats just the river though.

[jrcw]

The west end of the lake has slowed down lately too. The recent hot weather, little cloud cover and lack of winds haven't helped I'm sure. Just got back from Cutbank Point and you had to work for them out there tonight. Managed to get a few bottom bouncing spinner rigs with crawlers up and down the shelf. The 'anchor-and-jig' crowd weren't catching much from what I could tell either. Trolling crankbaits is working as well. Still, tough times! Anybody got any secrets they feel like sharing??

[Cal]

Deffinatly not doing well with jigs either, I'm catching most of mine on crank baits but they seem to want them to be going realy slow and with lots of pauses though sometimes i catch them by reeling realy fast so that the lip is hitting the bottom and kicking up mud. Maby a suspending crank would work good. But my results are not realy all that consistant so if anyone else has ideas I'm all ears. Has anyone used slip bobbers in rivers?

[bardfromedson]

try a bottom bouncer and pull a floating rapala. tie a 2ft leader onto the back treble of the rapala and pull a spinner with a crawler. another method that has worked up there when the bite is slow is pull a 4 ft leader behind a bouncer and tie 2 snells on. one 2 ft down and the other at the end. use gulp minnows or grubs on the first hook and live bait or gulps on the second. the bright gulps seem to attract them and they go after the live bait or the gulp itself. i like the floating rapala behind the bottom bouncer because you can still fish the steep drops and keep your hook in front of the fish. when the bite starts to slow down sometimes going faster with plugs(3mph and up) is the ticket.

[Cal]

Interesting idea bard. How heavy a bottom bouncer do you need to use to keep a floating rapala on the bottom in 15 feet of water while trolling 3mph?

[Drewski Canuck]

Like Calling, there are alot of tulibee in there. On a calm day, go out about 1 mile into 30 - 50 feet. Troll a deep diver, or a Perch finish chartreause Canadian Wiggler way back behind the boat. You will see schools of tulibee within 15 feet of the surface, and at 30 there will be the bigger arcs on the sounder, in the vicinity of the tulibee. Enjoy.

Drewski

[bardfromedson]

it doesn't take much to keep them down because they do dive a little bit. 2 or 3 oz is enough.

[Cal]

How big of a rap are you using?

[bardfromedson]

anywhere from a no.9-13 (3 1/2-51/4 inch). i always start with bigger stuff fishing walleye and let them tell me if its too big. by late fall you can use your big pike plugs on walleye that are on the feed bag. i have caught my biggest walleye on plugs that are the size of good eating size perch.

[Cal]

Ya I've been catching even walley in the 40 cm and under range on size 18 rapalas lately (somewhere in the 6-7 inch range I think) no sure how big of a bottom bouncer I'd need to keep that on the bottom but 1oz is the biggest I can find in SL so I've just been using deep divers. Weirdly I seem to be catching them on shallower runners now than in the spring but the regular and jointed rapalas run a little too shallow to catch the same numbers as a deeper diver. A week and a half ago I lost a monster GOLDEYE!!on a perch colored SIZE 18 RAPALA! I had a 54cm walleye on my stringer and this goldeye was quite a bit bigger. Would have loved to have hooked that guy on a flyrod instead of 20lb spider crap.

[bruce44]

my girlfriend caught her first fish in lesser slave lake last week. It was a 55 inch walleye. I caught a 47 inch walleye and 70 inch pike. I just used a yellow jig head with a black leech jig. When the sun goes down the most effective thing i used was just a minnow on a hook. I just let it drop to the bottom right under the boat and they took it like crazy

[Shmag]

WOW... 55 incher i am guessing that would be an alberta or even a world record. My biggest has been a 32 inch and it was a hog of a walleye.:lol:

[jrcw]

I'm pretty sure Bruce meant "centimetre", not inches. If not, he needs to get the record people on the line.

[jrcw]

I'm pretty sure Bruce meant "centimetre", not inches. If not, he needs to get the record people on the line.

[bullpike]

I was there last week and did pretty good on em with pink/white jig heads with minnows in 9-12 feet of water out fron joussard.

[shayne]

Been fishing here (LSL) at Marten River Campground for the past week and have caught our Walleye limit every time we've gone out, this morning in 20 minutes, wife, daughter and I in 3 ft waves, 6 ft deep. Good thing we caught up quick cuz I'd be divorced by now, wife was soaked! Most w.e. we've caught have been just over legal (43 cm) but have hooked into 3 over 50 cm, the pike have run smaller right around legal until today with some big ones tonight over 70 cm further south on the east end 8 to 10 ft skirting the weed beds in the coves. We've been trolling wild eyes, spoons and Canadian Wigglers for the most part and when we hit a hotspot we've anchored and moved to jigs and minnows. Very impressed with the 5 of D Canadian Wiggler, trolling 4 to 7 mph with lots of action. We were just chatting around the fire tonight and realized the 3 of us have caught and released over 60 legal fish in 6 days and have kept 11 for some real good eating. We've had a good week on LSL.

[bruce44]

WOW... 55 incher i am guessing that would be an alberta or even a world record. My biggest has been a 32 inch and it was a hog of a walleye.:lol:

sorry i mean cms i always do that. The number systems tick me off so much With fish you measure with cms with wood and other building materials its inches i always get that mixed up. I wish i had a 70 incher