I am completely new to walleye fishing and fairly new to fishing in general. I wanted to try walleye, so we visited Potholes state park for a camping trip. We are equipped with an inflatable raft fitted with a 30 lbs thrust electric trolling motor, Deeper fish finder, and some Scotty rod holders for trolling. We fished from about 10am-2pm in Potholes Reservoir, starting with slow trolling some slow death spinner rigs flatline and weighted with about 1/4 oz. I'm guessing we were skipping over the heads of what I'm assuming were walleye, which appeared on the fish finder about 15 feet deep in 20 feet of water. I'm guessing a bottom bouncer setup would have been better. We were fishing near the face of the dunes.

After failing to get a bite by trolling, we switched to locating areas with fish and using jigs. A 1/4 oz yellow jig head with a 4" plastic minnow in baby bass color elicited a brutal attack by a fat, almost 13" long yellow perch. We tried jig heads with plastic minnows and later 1/4 oz sonic baitfish tipped with pieces of nightcrawler, but failed to get any walleye or even more fat yellow perch to bite. Lastly we tried drop shots with nightcrawlers fished about a foot off the bottom, but that also didn't produce anything.

At about 1pm, we decided to head back towards the park given that it takes forever to get anywhere with a 30 lbs thrust electric motor. We cut the jigs off and decided to flatline troll some Rapala crankbaits at about 2mph while heading back to the park. About 1/2 mile from the park, a nice rainbow trout latched onto my wife's 2-3/4" hot steel color floating rapala. Since we were fishing with ultralight rods with 10 size reels, it was quite an experience with a screaming line peel against the drag, rod bending almost into a U shape, followed by one more run against the drag before we could get this nice looking 17-18" rainbow trout into the net.

In the late afternoon, we fished along the Frenchman Hill's wasteway where it empties into Potholes Reservoir from shore. I was able to get a small 14-15" walleye on a 2-3/4" Rapala perch pattern X-Rap, but that was it. At least I was able to catch a walleye (my first). The next morning before departing the campground, I was also fortunate to catch a nice largemouth bass on a 3-1/4" Rapala rainbow trout pattern X-rap and 5'6" ultralight rod. Weighed about 3-3.5 lbs is my guess, and swallowed the entire lure. Was able to get it out with some pliers fairly quickly and avoid further damage to the fish.

The trout, walleye, and perch were retained for lunch and dinner. The bass was released promptly after photo. May try Potholes again when I have acquired some more knowledge on how to fish walleye.

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