Lake Erie and hot'n'tot test report

[EdB]

We limited out on walleyes Sat and Sun at Erie. We were done at 10:00AM on Saturday and 11:00AM Sunday. We fished off the bannana dike in 20 ft of water. Old style Hot'n'tots were best, orange bellied perch early then chromes got hot mid morning both days. Green and chrome and blk and chrome tots were the best. I ran some side by side comparisons with new and old tots. I ran old and new perch tot's side by side, the old perch caught 4 walleyes, the new tot didn't get any walleyes but did get one smallmouth. Then I switched to blue and chrome, the old style tot got walleyes, the new style didn't. It is too bad Rapala bought Storm and changed the hot'n'tot. Good luck this week!

[STEINFISHSKI]

I have never bought a new style tot yet, but appreciate your honest testing report. I think it's a conspiracy. All my favorite baits have been discontinued and are old design colors and remakes.:mad:

[POLARBEAR]

on sunday we boated five fish and all were caught on new style tots. i ran both styles the entire time we were out. blue back, gold side, and orange belly. that is the only bait that got a hit. i ran 4 lines the whole time. when we got our second fish in the box we found one more tot in the same color and put that one on. those 2 rods produced fish. i kept changing bait colors on the other 2. i couldnt find anything they wanted. btw, i am new to fishing walleye and i do not know if i had the old style tots tuned correctly. i just thought i would let you all know they worked for us...??? polarbear

[EdB]

Good deal Polarbear,
I 'm glad they worked for you. Soon, these will be the only ones available. My one day's test is far from conclusive but it didn't do much for my confidence in running them. If you compare bills, it is clear they aren't the same so they won't have the same action. I guess time will tell on how good these work in the long run. I am sure I'll try running them some more. I'd be interested to hear more from others who are using these.

[walleyeman830]

We did some what of a test also over the weekend and concluded that we came to no conclusion(sp) what happened to us was this, most of the fish we caught were on the lines that were closer to the boards, as we would catch a fish and move the lines down it didn't seem to matter as long as it was way outside. New and Old alike were catching fish, but I will say that the jury is still out as far as I'm concerned. Next time out I going to try all the new style for the first couple of hours and if there's a little skunk in the box, may have to get ole faithfuls out and take care of the stink..........:D

[tkpolasek]

Walleyeman 830,
You said that you were catching most of the walleye that were closest to your boards. I am assuming that you are running big boards with a mast. I have found that because of the inside lines being out of the water more the baits naturally don't dive has deep, do you think this is may be why you weren't catching as many on the inside lines. This was the biggest reason that I went to in-line boards was because I know that no matter what the line enters the water the same on each line I'm running, so I should be getting fairly consistent depths inside or outside lines. There is days though when the fish are so spooky that the outside lines will do the best though.

Good Fishing
Tim

[walleyeman830]

Hey Tim,

Great response, yes we were running the big boards and I never put a whole lot of thought in it until we started taking more people out with us and running six lines. When it was just 1shot and me in the boat and running 4 lines and catching fish on both lines about equally I didn't think about it at all. What I did start doing was running jet divers this year and believe me when I say I'm new at using this style of fishing, using the jets on a seperate rod holder closer to the bow and not attached to the boards has kind of helped a lot since we are catching more fish on the inside lines now.

Now I have a ? for you. I have the inlines with tattle flags and have never used them, how do they run in rougher water?

I was fishing along side a guy sat, that was catching fish one after another with inlines, we picked up our 18 fish and finally I couldn't stand it anymore watching this guy catching 3 pounders and throw them back. C+R, no problem so I asked why he was throwing his fish back? He said that he had his limit but didn't want to leave but since I asked that was his 49th fish of the day..:eek: :confused: I thought we were doing good but 49 eyes.

[tkpolasek]

Walleyeman,
The only time I run tattle tale flags is when I'm dragging meat. This helps to alert me of small perch or walleye. For the most part though I don't use them. They will help if you get weeds on your baits though to. I do know that some of your real hard working crank baits will pull the flags down themselves. When your running two boards on each side you usually can tell pertty easily if you have a fish on one. Usually if I have doubt about a board dragging a small fish I will turn towards that board and it will drag back a little if something is there, but for the most part you will notice the board starting to drift back when a fish is there.

Good Fishing
Tim

[walleyeman830]

Thanks Tim,

I going to have to give them a little swimming lesson next time out.

[knockoff64]

I'm sure we'll catch fish on them, just gotta tune the presentation. Won't have much choice sooner or later.:( I still think the flash from the bill is as important as the action!

Another consideration for in-line boards is.....You can put a productive lure right back to the same spot in the spread. After you send the lure back. Just send the board straight back (with the clicker engaged) the right distance, when you lock the free spool, the board runs right up into it's spot!

[Spanky]

Hey guys, I live in Kalamazoo, and it is the home of"producer baits". I am not paid or givien anything for this promotion, but....They are the same company who makes the willy's worm, hookster spoons, finnigans minnow, roscoes shiner. Alot of them are cheaper imitations of other baits.
They have just come out with a new line of crankbaits that are so close to the original hot-n-tot, its scarry! metal lip, great colors, and VMC hooks. The only difference is a shallow indentation which resembles a gill plate. All the different sizes have rattles too. I bought 25 bucks worth last time I was at D& R sports in Kazoo, they had a great selection there. I am anxious to try them on eyes and steel!;)

[Spanky]

They were on sale for $2.69 a couple weeks ago. I think they are gonna be regularly around 3 bucks, so thats another good factor.

I have heard alot of bad reports about the new hot-n-tots with the plastic bill, especially in the cold winter months!

[EdB]

Hey Spanky, bring them with you Saturday when we hit Erie and we'll give them a run. Some buddies went last night and limited out in a short time and also got a 5lb steelhead. Black and Chrome tots were the best lure for them.

[POLARBEAR]

i went out with walleyeman and we were talking about the new tots and asked him to show me one of his. he handed me this thing that has some gawdy looking bill on it and blew me away. that is not what we were using. i had a new hot n tot. not the new stlyle. the new one i had was just crome covered bill. sorry to be confused. i would rather be something than nothing.:p
all of my older tots never had a crome covered bill. just metal. so i will be heading out with money in hand and picking up a good supply of the old faithful. i hate change, the new one dosent get it for me. i hope it will get the fish. good luck everyone. p.b.

[MSUICEMAN]

I got my dads old fishing tackle and inherited my gradfathers this year. Both of their favorite lures were hot n tots. I saw the new ones in the store and weren't very impressed. Hopefully the 281 I have last a while. I also have some of those producers with rattles, and I have done alright with those too. I started to get away from using tots, as I no longer have a boat of my own and started jigging more because of having to rent boats. Seeing these posts reinvigorated my interest in using tots, gonna give them a try next time out. I'll definitely use some of my grandpa's and see if I can catch some for him.

Steve