The soft action of the trolling rod bent deeply, flexing under the strain of a good fish. I pulled the rod out of the boat-mounted rod holder, while keeping the boat moving forward to avoid tangling the other trolled lines.

A couple minutes later, my partner, Sid Brown, dipped the net in the water and collected a fat 21-inch walleye.

Pymatuning walleyes have been tough to come by the last couple of years, and not due to any lack of fish. The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission surveys the lake ever spring to assess the lake’s walleye population. 2018’s effort collected 3,810 walleyes from seven to 28 inches, with the average being 18.5 inches. It was the second highest catch rate, surpassed only by what showed up in 2014.

But just because they are there doesn’t mean the walleyes have been easy to catch, at least not during the daylight hours. Pymatuning also has a glut of baitfish. In addition to several varieties of minnows, it plays host to gizzard shad and alewife, both of which are pelagic species that utilize open water much of the time. The lake’s walleyes are well-fed.

Historically, baitfish numbers have been reduced on a semi regular basis by winterkill, particularly in regard to gizzard shad, which don’t fare well during extended cold winters. The winters of 2015-’16 and 2016-’17 were mild ones, having little effect on knocking back shad numbers. Many believe it was this excess of food fish that led to the slow fishing last year. Angler spirits were raised when this spring’s ice-out revealed thousands of dead shad, victims of the cold water and heavy ice cover of a hard winter.

Despite the optimistic outlook that ushered in the spring of 2018, the daytime walleye bite on Pymatuning was still slow. Good catches were made at evening twilight and into the darkness, often by waders keying in on shallow gravel humps and points that attract spawning walleyes, legal prey on a lake that has no closed season. But daytime anglers were left largely out in the cold —literally — during a spring that seemed more like winter much of the time.

Warming water temperatures the past couple of weeks seems to have kick started the walleye bite, extending it to hours not confined to the night shift. The word was that the productive areas have been associated with shallow humps. These spots attract spawning alewife at night during late spring and early summer, and are targeted by nighttime anglers with their sights set on fish feeding in skinny water on the herring baitfish. It makes sense that walleyes would be present near such structures during the daylight hours, out in deeper water, but still in the neighborhood.

The areas we focused on were deeper zones just out from humps that topped off in four to six feet of water. The Memorial Day weekend Sunday provided hot sun and very little wind. Little to no sign of a good walleye chop that helps activate fish and allow anglers to use drifting tactics. So we-slow trolled nightcrawler harnesses behind bottom-bouncing sinkers. Bottom bouncers feature lead weights secured on one leg of a two-legged vee-shaped wire. The main line is attached to the point of the vee by way of a snap. The snelled ‘crawler harness clips to the second wireleg of the sinker. The ‘crawler harness features two snelled hooks behind a spinner blade and a string of colored beads. We used 1.5 ounce bottom bouncers.

As the rig is slow-trolled along the bottom, the wire of the sinker holds the lead weight up off the bottom, minimizing snags. A speed of around 1 mph keeps the spinner blade activated, attracting walleyes to the tasty ‘crawler. Though you can hand-hold the rod, often it’s best to place it in a rod holder, especially if the rod has a soft, parabolic action. With the soft action rod, which “gives” as the walleye takes the bait, the fish is typically well-hooked by the time you retrieve the rod from its holder.

Had the day provided some wind, simply drifting near these same areas with a jig-n-crawler would likely have been productive.

But on a day with tough conditions, and lots of angling pressure, the spinner-crawler harnesses helped us put several nice walleyes in the boat, along with a host of panfish including yellow perch, pumpkinseed and crappies.

Jeff Knapp is an outdoors columnist for the Butler Eagle.