PELICAN LAKE
"There is so much structure on this lake that it's tough to pick a starting point," Roach said. Pelican in Crow Wing County is one of Roach's favorite walleye lakes just because of the challenge of all that structure. "Fortunately, there are a lot of walleyes in Pelican, so there are probably some fish on most of the humps and points, but you still have to strain a spot well before moving on. Anglers go wrong on Pelican by trying to do too much in too short a time."

Roach's July technique on Pelican has him checking out the deeper water around the points, saddles and sunken islands with his sonar.

"I'll be looking in 22 to 28 feet of water and I'm not even dropping a bait until I spot some fish," Roach said. "When I do mark some fish on the sonar, I'll send down a leech on a Roach Rig and follow the contour where those walleyes are."

Roach encourages anglers to decipher the pattern since walleyes throughout the lake are going to be following the same recipe in their summer mode. "If you're finding walleyes on the tips of points in 25 feet on a sand/rubble bottom, there will be another 10 spots like that on Pelican," Roach said, "and there will likely be walleyes on those other spots, too.

LAKE WACONIA
Lake Waconia is the metro area's classic walleye lake. It has been described as a mini Mille Lacs because there are mudflats, reefs and rubble/sand transition areas, and the lake has a good population of walleyes in many size ranges. This is the lake Matt Pretzel grew up on chasing walleyes, pike and bass.

"The bass, northern pike and muskies take over the vegetation, which pushes the walleyes out into the deeper open water," explained Pretzel about the July bite. "You can see fish on your sonar in 18 to 25 feet of water when they're up off the bottom, but on Waconia the walleyes will often lie right in a subtle dip in the bottom and you can't spot them."

Pretzel discovered Waconia's walleyes while dragging around live-bait rigs in his younger years, but now he can bolster the evidence of this phenomenon with the use of an underwater viewing camera.

"You can actually note this subtle bottom contour change on your sonar, and I think it's always a good idea to send down a live-bait rig with a leech whether you see fish or not," Pretzel said. "If you have an underwater camera, you can send it down just to see how tight these fish are to the bottom." When the walleyes are lying in these dips, you don't need a lot of distance between the weight and the bait. You also don't want a floater near the hook. Just let the weight of a small hook keep the bait near the bottom and use a 1/2- to 3/4-ounce walking sinker so you're not stirring up the bottom.

"July walleye fishing on Waconia means you'll find tightly packed schools of fish," Pretzel said, "so once you're on them, mark the spot and hang in there for a while."