Schooled walleyes roaming open water, either suspending or lying over open basins, generally are the province of trolling with either planer boards or divers, snap weights, and crankbaits, spinners, or spoons. The idea is to set up a spread of lines and lures to effectively saturate and sift through the fish zone, checking various depths and experimenting with different baits and speeds to determine productive presentations. Select the proper system, according to the target depth range.

Walleyes within 25 feet of the surface typically can be reached with unweighted crankbaits or lightly weighted spinner-crawler harnesses. From 25 to about 40 feet, adding 1- to 3-ounce snap weights to the line 50 feet ahead of the lure takes baits down into the desired depth. Run the bait out 50 feet behind a slowly moving boat, pinch the weighted snap onto the line, let out sufficient line to reach the target trolling depth, add a side planer, let out enough additional line to take the line and board out to the side, then engage the reel and place the rod in a holder.

Repeat with additional lines and rods to set up a trolling spread. Troll downwind at 1 to 3 mph, using S-turns or alternate shifts in and out of gear to introduce speed changes, which flutters or raises lures or baits to trigger strikes. When you hook a walleye, reel in slowly, pinching and detaching the planer and weight before netting the fish off the transom.

This presentation is effective for eliminating unproductive water and zeroing in on walleyes, particularly at the 1 to 3 mph quick trolling range, which is productive in cool to cold water, and during summer as well. It’s simple in principle, complex in execution, in order to minimize tangles, maximize catches, and achieve desired results. But a properly run set of lines proceeds through open water like a shrimp trawler, showing lures to fish suspended at the target depth.

At depths beyond 40 feet, more weight often is necessary. Alternative systems—diving planers, downriggers, wire line—may be required to effectively work deep open water. Such systems seldom are necessary, however, except on the open basins of the Great Lakes, where huge schools of big walleyes prowl deep basins. Inland waters typically don’t require such excessive adaptations.

When walleyes lie tight to the bottom across middepth basins, say from 25 to 40 or 50 feet deep, cranks or spinners can be run just above their heads with carefully presented planer-board and snap-weight applications. But switching to heavy bottom bouncers, spinners, and crawlers to cruise baited harnesses just above bottom is easier. The wire leg of the bottom bouncer skips across bottom, over rocks or zebra-mussel-encrusted structures and presents a bait on target for bottom-hugging walleyes. When walleyes become a bit more active and begin suspending, switch to cranks or spinners with planers and snap weights for a more effective presentation.

Snap To It

How can you incorporate these fancy trolling tactics without dumping thousands of dollars into equipment and sinking your boat? One answer is with snap-on systems.

Snap-on weights, snap-on boards, and snap-on divers. Sounds like the ultimate concession to the modern fascination with quick and easy. Truth is, snap-on systems are revolutionary. Trolling aids snap on and off the line as needed. Boards, weights, and planer-divers go on and come off the line quickly. Lures can be placed farther from the rigging than with original designs.

Snap Weights

In the last decade, snap weights have become standard for open-water trollers. They pinch onto your line ahead of the lure and detach upon retrieval before netting a fish. Pinch pads don’t damage line, and they permit easy change of weight size for trolling at different depths. Popular models include:

OffShore Tackle OR-16 Snap Weight—The original plastic pinch clip with soft pads designed to grip line without damage. Adjustable spring tension. Squeeze clip, insert line, release. Stays put until removed during retrieval. Kit available with multiple clips and sinker sizes.

Church Tackle Gary Roach Mister Walleye Super Clip Drop Weight—A tongue twister if ever there were one, but fortunately, not one to twist your line. Insert line into a stainless steel clip and spring mechanism, coated with a soft grip face, to hold the sinker in place. Kit available with multiple clips and sinker sizes.

Wille Chief’s Zonie—This modified planer board release arrangement will affix a wide range of light to heavy 0(a pound or more) weights to your line. Twists as tight as necessary, using a rubber liner to prevent line damage. Weights above 3 ounces typically are too heavy for use with online planers, but they’re a good option for trolling excessively deep for lakers, trout, salmon, or walleyes.

Big Jon Elberta Clip’er—Big Jon features their Elberta Clip’er as a multiuse downrigger slider, cannonball release, and sinker slider. The sinker slider application works like a snap weight. Add a snap to the furnished swivel, attach a weight, and you’re set.

Redi Rig In-Line Releaser—This multifunctional release can be used as either a sliding or fixed-position snap weight. Add a sinker, thread onto your line, retract the shaft to expose the clip, wrap line once around the clip, and release at the desired position. If you rig it to release and let the weight slide down the line on the strike, add a barrel swivel inline ahead of the lure to prevent the sinker from bonking the fish on the nose.

Snap weights grip monofilament without accidentally detaching during strikes; mono’s inherent stretch absorbs strike impact. Nostretch superlines, however, receive sudden impact strikes, possibly causing the clip to prematurely detach, losing the assembly. When trolling with superlines, add a safety snap swivel between the clip and your main fishing line, or thread your line through the clip before attaching via the pinch pad. Then, if the clip detaches, the weight assembly slides down the line, much like a Redi-Rig In-Line Releaser.

Planer Boards

In recent years, on-line (in-line) planer boards have become the rage among open-water walleye trollers. Boards feature an angled front forward surface and carry lines either to the left or right of the boat. Because boards clamp directly to the line, they provide an alternative to investing in heavy hardware like downriggers.

While most popular boards feature an easy snap-on attachment, all boards are not created equal. Some are larger, featuring increased flotation. Most are weighted to ride better in rough water or at extremely slow speeds.

Yellow Birds were the first in-line boards. These lightweight boards were originally designed for presenting crankbaits to salmon and trout in shallow water, and they worked best with lures that didn’t have a lot of pull. They initially lacked ballast because they were never meant to be used at low speeds.

Boards without ballast are designed to run at about 1.75 to 4 mph; any slower and they fall over. Then when they start moving again, they tangle 20 to 40 percent of the time.

Stop-and-start trolling can be effective for walleyes, muskies, stripers, and other fish, but the board has to stay upright when stopped. If it tips, it submerges when you start again.

When a salmon hits, it’ll strip 30 to 60 yards of line. Boards rigged to pop free and slide down the line on a snap work best for salmon, because hard-fighting fish can’t use them for leverage to create slack and undue stress on line.

But for livebait rigging or slow-trolling crankbaits, boards with ballast are best. Walleyes don’t make gut-wrenching runs. Don’t pull on a walleye, and it doesn’t seem to know what’s happening. Walleyes grab a lure and try to swim off with it. If the board pops and slides, you lose fish. Maintain positive tension between the board and the fish.

In addition, most boards geared to walleyes feature two pinch clips—one on an arm extending from the side of the board, the other at the tail end. Inserting the line into two such locations makes the board stay on the line better. (When using superlines, consider double-wrapping line through the pinch clips, similar to using snap weights.)

As a side benefit, a two-clip system makes reading subtle strikes easier. When a fish hits, the board tilts up as well as dropping back. Even with small fish, some surface area rises out of the water. Some anglers prefer rigging both pinch clips on the side arm to accentuate this tilting feature, although boards rigged in this fashion don’t perform as well in rough water.

Yellow Bird—A small lightweight board made from expandable polystyrene, with a weighted bottom to right itself in choppy water. A large snap at the rear allows the board to slide down the line when the release pops.

Wille Products Side-Liner—Available with either a twist-style wing nut and plastic pad release, or a clamp style pinch pad. Filled with about 21⁄2 ounces of BBs to provide ballast and produce noise. Rotating the arm 180 degrees switches boards from port to starboard.

Cannon Rover—The original wooden planer features pinch-pad releases for walleyes. Heavy and stable in rough water.

Off Shore Tackle OR-12 Side Planer—Foam-filled board with a sturdy pop-up flag. Available with black (medium tension) or red (heavy tension) snap releases. Optional Tattle Flag kit helps detect the presence of small fish or weeds on the line. Clip-on Night Light provides visibility at night.

Big Jon Otter—Available in 5-inch and 8-inch models; adjustable to run left or right. V-pin line attachment, tension adjustable.

Church Tackle Gary Roach Mister Walleye Board—Large board with an adjustable keel weight designed to run in rough water. Single stainless steel release clip with pinch pad. Sliding pin attachment at rear allows board to slide down the line if release pops.

Starport Mini-Ski—Small wooden board with pinch-pad releases.

Luhr-Jensen Hot Shot Side Planer—Small, lightweight planer designed for steelhead fishing in rivers, with light-line walleye applications. Adjustable to run left or right. No ballast.

Tru-Trac Tru-Tracker—Lightweight plastic board, no ballast, performs best at faster speeds, with lures having little water resistance.

Divers and Planers

Diving planers are devices tied in-line a short distance ahead of a lure, to take trolled lures deeper. They come in different sizes, weighted and unweighted, sharing the common characteristic of an angled planing or diving surface. Tow ‘em through the water and they dive, dive, dive. The more line out, the deeper they run, getting lures down into perhaps the 70-foot range.

When you get a bite, a trip lever releases, generally popping a large barrel swivel out of a clip, to untangle the planer. Now, instead of having to reel against the resistance of the angled contraption, the straightened planer surface limply glides through the water, letting you focus on fighting the fish.

While diving planers chiefly were developed for salmon and trout fishing, they also work well for deep-water suspended walleyes. Use them to troll spoons, spinner harnesses, or shallow-diving crankbaits to extreme levels.

Some divers, termed directional, can be set to run both down and out. An adjustable-position keel weight along the lower face of the diver can be angled to either side, tipping it off center, which causes it to run either right or left. Tilt left, run right, and vice versa. The more angled the weighted keel, the more it runs to either side. As a consequence, depth is sacrificed. Thus directional divers set to run to the side run shallower than those that dive directly below.

It’s possible to set up a spread of diver lines, all reaching different depths, by angling planers to varying degrees and letting out different lengths of line. Done properly, lines won’t tangle when trolled. And when a fish strikes, the planer release pops, and the planer drops back behind the boat. Net the fish off the transom to avoid crossing lines. Easier said than done with fast salmon, but not difficult with walleyes.

Most diving planers have such significant planing surfaces and water resistance that they must be run with fairly heavy line and stout rods. Twenty-pound mono is standard; 8-, 9-, or 10-foot diver rods help spread and position lines, absorb the continual strain of trolling, and cushion hooksets. Tying a rubber snubber between the diver and leader softens strike impact.

Diving planers tend to hold true to depth. They excel at faster trolling speeds than can be achieved with planer boards and snap weights, or leadcore. While theoretically they can be run at any depth, practically speaking, over 150 feet of line becomes difficult to work with, due to line stretch and water resistance. So visualize fishing within a big wide semicircle beneath and to either side of the boat.

All divers are similar, but each offers its own blend of features:

Diving Planers

Luhr-Jensen Jet Diver—A floating diver that trolls lures on fairly light 10-pound line with medium-weight rods. It takes lures down, but will float when the boat stops, raising the bait above snags.

Luhr-Jensen Pink Lady—A weighted diver with a sensitive trip mechanism for lighter-biting fish.

Luhr-Jensen Deep Six—A heavily weighted diver for extremely deep or fast trolling.

Doelcher Fish Seeker—A lightweight diver that trolls lures on 10-pound line with medium-weight rods.

Directional Divers

Luhr-Jensen Dipsy Diver—The classic and best-known angled diver for fishing down and out. Turn a weighted keel to determine dive angle, from straight down to off to either side. Features an outer detachable ring to increase or decrease planing surface and depth.

Big Jon Mini Diver, Deep’r Diver—Similar to the Dipsy, but smaller. Sometimes used in conjunction with side planers and mast systems to spread lures.

Kastaway Diver—Similar to the Dipsy, with a magnetic trip mechanism, rather than a swivel and clip, for precisely setting trip tension. Tripped release can be reset without retrieving.

U-Charters Slide Diver—Similar to the Dipsy, except that it threads onto the line and clamps down onto it without damaging the line. Alone of all the divers, it can be positioned any distance ahead of the lure to minimize spooking. When a fish strikes and trips the release mechanism, the diver slides down the line to the fish, or to a swivel placed in-line ahead of the lure. Detachable outer ring.

Other Systems?

You bet. Switching to wire line when using divers or heavy three-way rigs will attain greater depths; a good option for fishing below 50 feet, but requires heavier tackle. Many folks just don’t enjoy fishing with wire.

Downrigging, notably with spoons, enables you to fish deeper (50 to 100 feet), faster, or both. While downrigging is a viable method for presenting spinners, crankbaits, and spoons, it requires additional hardware and tackle. Considered a near necessity among Great Lakes trout and salmon trollers, downrigging enjoys pockets of popularity among walleye anglers, but not nearly the same acceptance as going on-line with snap weights and boards, and in some cases, divers.