Dave Lehman displays part of a catch of yellow perch made late last week. Yellow perch and walleye fishing are beginning to pick up off the Pennsylvania shores of Lake Erie.

With the arrival of summer weather, many anglers are making their regular pilgrimages to one of the best fishing holes in the country, Lake Erie. Yellow perch, smallmouth bass, and steelhead have all been providing action of late.

But the biggest news for most is the arrival of good numbers of walleyes.

During the past week, excellent catches of walleyes have been made in the area off of Walnut Creek and Elk Creek. Most of the fish have come from relatively shallow water, in the 24- to 40-foot range.

This makes the fish accessible to anglers lacking the big water gear needed to take walleyes from the depths they will likely be in later this summer.

The workhorse for most summertime Lake Erie walleye trollers is a flutter spoon fished behind a Dipsey Diver. A Dipsey Diver is a directional planer-diver.

To attain the depths commonly needed to reach fish offshore, it's necessary to use the large version, While the big Dipsey can be used tighter to shore, you can drop down to a medium Dipsey, which is more pleasant to work with.

At the 0 setting (straight back, not planing to the side) the medium Dipsey pulls down to 34 feet with 125 feet out of 10-pound-test mono. This depth decreases as you adjust the diver to plane to the side.

My trolling reels are loaded with 30-pound test braided superline that has the diameter of eight-pound test mono. Things dive a bit deeper with this thin line. These lines have no stretch, though, so it's necessary to use somewhat softer rods for a bit of forgiveness.

Fluorocarbon line is good for leader work (between the Dipsey and the spoon). The leader should be about 6 to 8 feet long, but certainly not so long as to impede you from winding the fish in close enough to be netted. Use line at least 16-pound test to prevent breakoffs when the fish hits the spoon.

Flutter spoons in the 4-inch category work fine. Carry a selection of colors and finishes. Last season, brass spoons that included some chartreuse produced well.

If you are new to the spoon game, visit any walleye-fishing Internet forum that includes the Great Lakes and you'll be introduced to the strange world of spoon colors. You'll get to learn about monkey puke, mixed veggies and chicken wing, among other equally odd handles.

As effective as Dipsey Diver-spoons are, in most near-shore situations, it's possible and more simple (and I like simple) to longline troll deep diving crankbaits or to use leadcore line to sink minnowbaits down to walleye level.

Last season, the majority of the walleyes I caught came on a deep diving crankbait, more specifically a Rapala Deep Taildancer, in either purpledescent or blue flash. Fished about 100 feet behind the boat on 30/8 braided superline, the lure would dive to the 30-foot range. An 8-foot Gamma Edge fluorocarbon leader connected the main line to the lure.

In keep with my philosophy of keeping things simple, I run one crankbait out each side of the boat, varying the setback (starting things off, say, at 80 feet and 110 feet) to strain different areas of the water column.

My trolling rods are long (10Z\x feet), so normally I don't find it necessary to use inline planers to catch fish. The long rods hold the baits a bit further away from the boat and separate them, which minimizes tangles.

Out the back of the boat goes a leadcore rod with a minnowbait like a Storm Thunderstick or Smithwick Rogue. Blue-chrome and blue-silver are typically hot colors. I usually start off with about 100 feet of leadcore out. If the lure remains untouched, I lengthen the let-out, which allows the lure to run deeper. If it is a bit bumpy out, I troll with the wind to my back.

During the summer trolling speeds of 2 to 2Z\x mph tend to be most effective on Lake Erie walleyes. Whether you are using hardbaits or spoons, if you are catching a lot of sheephead, you often can minimize being bothered by them by switching colors.

Yellow perch also can be caught in relatively shallow water. Late last week, Dave Lehman and I took good numbers of perch in the 11- to 13- inch range while fishing a shallow hump that rose to within 6 feet of the surface. The perch were holding within 10 to 14 feet of the edge of the hump.