John Hoyer of Orono, Minn., won the National Walleye Trail Championship recently on Lake Erie at Dunkirk, N.Y., with cutting edge tactics that relied on casting artificial swim baits to shoreline weed beds. Special to cleveland.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- There are a couple of traditional ways to catch Lake Erie walleye in summertime. Anglers cast with forward spinners or small spinner rigs tipped with a nightcrawler, or they troll a variety of diving plugs, spoons or spinner rigs.
John Hoyer, of Orono, Minn., however, has pioneered the technique of casting plastic swim baits to weed beds for walleye, an unusual way to hook trophy walleye without using live bait. His favorite is the Berkley Champion Swimmer, a fish-shaped, 3.8-inch soft plastic minnow-style lure with a paddle tail.
It worked so well in the National Walleye Trail Championship at Dunkirk, N.Y., Aug. 24-26 that Hoyer caught a 15-fish limit weighing 102.33 pounds. His first-place prizes were a Ranger 621 fishing boat worth $129,469 and $33,474 in cash.
His boat partner on the final day, Duane Hjelm of Pierre, S.D., finished second with 90.87 pounds, winning the Lucas Oil Angler of the Year title. Jason Prtzekurat of Stevens Point, Wisc., was third, and Sammy Cappelli of Youngstown was 28th with 46.52 pounds.
Most of the 40-angler field trolled the depths of Lake Erie along the New York and Pennsylvania shorelines, and found success. Hoyer and Hjelm instead headed north to the Canadian shoreline where near-shore eelgrass beds were abundant.
Using a Berkley PowerBait The Champ Swimmer, Hoyer said he would cast into the eelgrass, snap the bait as hard as possible to clear the grass, and walleye would bite it on the fall. His best colors were HD Bluegill and HD Yellow Perch.
“I was letting the lure free fall as fast as it possibly could, and the walleye would absolutely inhale it,” Hoyer told the weigh-in crowd. “I would use a 1/2-ounce up to a 1-ounce Fusion 19 swimbait jighead depending on the current. With the heavier jighead, the lure falls even faster and they hit it even harder.
“That snapping action is the most fun way to catch a walleye. To see how fast they come and hit it is breathtaking. The only rod I used was a 7-foot medium heavy Fenwick World Class rigged with 10-pound Fireline and a 15-pound Trilene fluorocarbon leader.”
While most of the tournament field was trolling in 70 feet of water, Hoyer was casting to the weeds in 6 to 12 feet of water — and winning with a 6.8-pound average for his 15 walleye.
Geneva Open wraps up LEWT: The final Lake Erie Walleye Trail regular season tournament will drop anchor at Geneva State Park Marina, with weigh-ins on Saturday starting at 3 p.m., said Tournament Director Jason Fischer. The Geneva GOTL Open has 80 entrants and a team meeting tonight.
The LEWT Championship will be held in Cleveland Sept. 30-Oct. 1 at the Lakefront Reservation/East 72nd StreetFishing Area. Weigh-in spectators welcome.
The value of fishing tournaments: Having competed in a variety of fishing tournaments and attended a wealth of weigh-ins over the years, the tournaments have been fodder for a lots of features on new and different ways to catch fish.
Tournament anglers such as Minnesota’s John Hoyer are masters of angling invention, and pro fishermen know that cutting-edge fishing tactics can’t be kept secret for very long. Since Hoyer began probing Lake Erie weed beds for walleye, a legion of fishermen are going to want to try the technique.
Many years ago, most local fishermen cast weight-forward spinners for walleye on a season that ran from June until the winter ice arrived. Minnesota and South Dakota tournament anglers brought trolling tactics to Lake Erie for spring and summer walleye fishing. Spring fishing was considered too difficult because walleye were spawning until western U.S. anglers began casting lead-head jigs and blade baits to to the shallow western Lake Erie reefs to find success.
Lorain walleye catches consistent: The walleye fishing has been good this week in waters shallower than 30 feet and deeper than 50 feet off Lorain. Trolling small crankbaits like Flicker Minnows and small spoons or tandem spinner rigs and nightcrawlers have been the best bet.
Remember that spinner blades are designed not to roll and tangle at various speeds. Colorado blades work best with a slower troll, such as under 2 miles per hour. Indiana blades can be trolled at about 2.5 miles per hour, while willow blades can be run at up to 3 miles per hour.
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