
“That fish grabs that crankbait, there’s not a lot of stretch in the line, and bang, thats a really positive hookset,” Holst says. “We’ve got sticks and stumps, rocks and bumps, and all kinds of things that were just bashing these crankbaits into, so that braid is great because it’s very durable,” Holst explains. View Shad Rapsīecause they’re trolling shallow near shoreline cover, Holst and Nelson are pulling six-pound diameter, 20-pound test, Sufix 832 braid. “Those three colors really stand heads and tails above everything else as producers, year after year, on this particular body of water,” Holst says. That’s one of three colors Holst calls The Trinity for post-spawn ‘eyes. The orange Crawdad has been the best color today. “Whether you’re throwing it or trolling it, this bait is as close as you’ll get to finding a sure thing in a tackle box,” he says. Nelson caught the bigger walleye - and all his eaters in the box - on a No. “You don’t need to keep any big fish, because by the end of the day, we’re going to have all the 16-, 18-, 19-inch fish we’re going to possibly want,” Holst explains to the camera. “Nice work, net man,” Nelson says, before admiring the fat fish and then releasing it. It’s a 26-inch walleye, which Holst nets for Nelson. Trophy fish are less frequent with this pattern, “but don’t be surprised if it’s a 25-, 26-inch walleye,” Holst tells Nelson, whose rod is bent in half as he reels in what both anglers suspect is a big sheephead.īut it’s not. “You’re typically going to be able to catch a lot of fish very quickly,” Holst says. “We throw a little speed at these fish, and all we catch is walleyes.” “We troll at two miles-per-hour and all we catch is white bass and sheephead,” Holst explains. Because that’s still relatively cool for walleyes, Holst says, “the common thought would be you’re going to want to slow down.” But conventional wisdom is often wrong. “And we only get faster as that water temperature rises,” Holst notes. “That’s pretty fast, by most trolling standards,” Nelson says. “We’re spending almost all of our time trolling from two and three-quarters to three miles-an-hour.”


“I don’t have an answer for why these fish respond well to trolling fast, but they do,” Holst says. It’s a sunny, cool late-May afternoon, and he and fellow Rapala pro-staffer Joel Nelson are loading their livewell with eater ‘eyes.

Rapala scatter rap shallow tv#
Holst, host of In-Depth Outdoors TV on Fox Sports North, is filming a show on Lake Pepin, a wide spot on the Mississippi River south of the Twin Cities, on the Minnesota-Wisconsin border. “This is a pattern I’ve used for many years to put numbers of eating-size fish in the boat,” says Rapala Pro-Staffer James Holst. Goose the throttle on your next fishing trip, and you’ll be lapping other anglers as you boat walleye after walleye.
