Get the Lead Out…
If you’ve heard much about leadcore line, you probably think it is pretty basic stuff, right? All you need to do is attach a lure, count the colors down and catch walleyes.
Like I said, it’s pretty basic, and it works quite well that way. However, there is more to fishing leadcore than just putting a kicker motor in gear and going.
There are a number of different techniques and methods for tweaking your presentation, and they will help you get more fish more often.
Here’s one way to refine your core competency.
"First, you need to understand what leadcore is," says Lindy pro Jon Thelen. "Leadcore is just what it sounds like: a line that has wire lead at its center, surrounded by a woven nylon or Dacron sheath. The sheath changes color every ten yards, which helps in determining how much line you’ve put out.
"The idea behind the line is that it sinks, and it will do so at a specific rate, depending upon boat speed and the diameter of the line as well as the diameter of the core.
"For walleye fishing, I use 18 lb line because it works well with the way I fish it."
One of the presentation tweaks Thelen uses puts him on fish in rough weather and keeps his lures in the fish zone all the time.
"When it gets rough," says Thelen, "your boat will ride
on the waves, and it tends to surge. You’ll ride up on the crest, and then plunge down. What this does is create a surging of your lure as well, pulling it up out of the walleyes’ strike zone, and then pulling it down and then back up again. It is not a good way to fish when walleyes are scattered. You’ve got to be in the strike zone all the time.
"So I use snap weights to keep the line and lure in the strike zone even in heavy chop."
The snap weights aren’t the be-all, end-all part of the equation; they are part of a system where everything works in conjunction to perform a certain way.
"OK, say we’re fishing for walleyes in a fairly stiff chop, maybe 18 inches. With a small boat, you’re riding on top of that, and the lure is getting pulled and dropped and pulled and dropped with every wave crest and trough. It’s really a guess where the lure is running in regards to the strike zone.
"Adding a snap weight at the junction of the leadcore and leader smoothes things out. The weight resists the upward pull and anchors the leader and lure in the zone," says Thelen.
It’s important to note that smaller boats are more likely to move up and down in swells or chop than larger boats. Thelen’s big fiberglass boat doesn’t move as much as a 14-foot aluminum hull, but it moves significantly more than a large, heavy, deep-vee charter boat in the same conditions.
That movement is what makes the leadcore-snap weight combo so important in rough water.
"Generally," says Thelen, "I’ll use an ounce of weight for every foot of wave height. However, I don’t use more than two ounces.
"What the snap weight does is anchor the leader in the fish zone. Because leadcore line has a natural bow in it, the weight creates a situation where the surge pulls the bow out of the line. Use more than two ounces and the weight straightens the bow out of the leadcore and you have no bow. With heavier weights and without the bow in the line, the surge acts directly on the lure, pulling it out of the strike zone with every wave."
Once again, Thelen’s leadcore system is more than just heavy line and clip-on weights.
"Leadcore works well in a lot of walleye situations because it does two things. First, once it is out a couple of colors, it maintains its depth quite well. Second, it allows you to get a lure quite a ways behind the boat, and sometimes that separation is a good thing," adds Thelen, referring to those times when walleyes are spooked by a boat.
Because leadcore has little stretch, it is a very sensitive line. If you add a superline leader—Thelen uses 10 feet of 10 lb line—you can feel what your lure is doing even if it is 60 yards (six colors) behind the boat.
"With the lack of stretch in leadcore and the superline leader, I can feel when my bait is hitting bottom, is fouled by weeds or isn’t working for some reason or another. That is necessary information," says Thelen. "If I use monofilament leader, even 10 feet of it, I can’t feel the bait."
To determine the amount of line Thelen has out, he relies on a linecounter reel. Leadcore line comes in 100-yard spools in several different breaking strengths. The outer sheath changes color every 10 yards, giving rise to the idea of "colors" in regards to letting out line.
Obviously the linecounter reel is more accurate and allows fine-tuning.
"For instance," says Thelen, "if I’m fishing in 30 feet of water, and the walleyes are holding close to the bottom, I’ll put out maybe six colors of line—180 feet on my reels.
"If I start hitting the bottom, and I can tell this with leadcore, I’ll want to come up five feet or so to stay close to the bottom and in the strike zone.
"If it’s windy, then I will add a snap weight, generally one ounce for every foot of weight height, and I’ll have to adjust my line a bit more to compensate for the added depth."
To handle the big reel and heavy line, Thelen uses a salmon and steelhead rod that has the flexibility in the tip to show that his preferred lure – a Lindy Shadling - is working. It also acts as the cushion to absorb sudden lunges that walleyes always seem to make at the net.
Another key feature is that the heavy rod has enough butt to handle big walleyes in a trolling situation.
"Say we’re trolling Shadlings at two miles per hour," says Thelen. "And an eight-pounder hits. Maybe we reel him in at two miles per hour, so basically we’re dragging an eight-pound, ticked-off fish at four miles per hour. It takes a strong rod to handle that load."
Thelen prefers the Shadling series of crankbaits when fishing with leadcore for a couple of reasons. First, with its holographic finish, it collects and reflects the limited light that is visible in deeper water. It gives you all the flash it can get, in other words.
Second, "This crankbait runs true right out of the box every time," explains Thelen. "Not only that, it will run straight up to 6.5 miles per hour, and that can be important in any trolling situation.
"If your trolling speed is three or four miles per hour, and you want to reel in a Shadling for any reason, it will run straight back to the boat at high speed. It won’t blow out and tangle with other lines, and that is a real help when you’re running a bunch of rods."
So if you’re thinking leadcore line, snapweights and Shadlings is pretty basic stuff, you’re right: it is.
However, use them wisely, Grasshopper, and you will catch more walleyes in situations where others are getting blanked, and that is more than basic, it’s the right stuff.