- Diving Plane colors do not matter to the fish.
- Let the fish tell you what lure and what shape they want.
- Multiple lines and multiple depths are simple with Dipsy Divers.
By David Figura
It was an October Lake Erie fishing trip that began mid-morning in Chautauqua County, New York, out of Barcelona Harbor, on a windy but sunny fall day.
It ended a couple of hours later with an impressive catch of walleye (we boated 23 keepers between 17 and 29 inches) and two nice-sized steelhead, all from using a fishing technique that blew me away by its effectiveness.
Having fished elsewhere for walleye, I’ve caught them drifting and jigging, trolling with downriggers and just plain casting. Our guide, Rob Oram, a veteran walleye tournament angler of more than 20 years on the lake, introduced me to a piece of fishing equipment I hadn’t tried before – Dipsy Divers.
The best time to fish for walleye on the lake’s eastern shore, Oram said, was mid-summer through early fall,” Oram said. He’s found that Dipsey Divers tended to make fishing fun and easy on the lake during that time and others.
“I just think when you’ve located fish suspended at a certain depth – say 50 feet or more – that Dipsies are the most effective way to get your lure down there to the fish,” he said.
Judging by the morning’s catch, he wouldn’t get any argument from me.
I’m an outdoor writer from Central New York (Skaneateles). I was on Lake Erie in early October as part of the 2024 Chautauqua Outdoor Media Camp, sponsored by Chautauqua County’s tourism folks. That particular day, I was joined by Jim Proffitt and Jeff Frischkorn, two outdoor writers from Ohio, as we took off at around 9:30 a.m. aboard Oram’s 22-foot Olsen Brothers Marine boat, a Skeeter WX 2000.
A relative newcomer to the Lake Erie walleye fishing scene, I had popped a Dramamine shortly before going out as a precaution due to my long-standing inclination to get motion sickness on big waterways. However, once we got several miles out, the wind died, and the wave size decreased. And the fun began.
So, what is a Dipsy Diver?
It is a light, round disk-shaped device (slightly bigger than the palm on your hand) that attaches to one’s line. While trolling, it enables an angler to easily get a line and lure down anywhere from roughly 40 to 80 feet, which is ideal for targeting suspended fish.
It’s a cheap alternative to using a downrigger setup, which can cost hundreds of dollars. Dipsies range in price anywhere from $15 to $20, Oram said.
Another advantage to using Dipsies is that they allow an angler to get more lines in the water, experiment, and learn quicker at what depth and what lures/baits the walleye want to bite.
“Personally, I don’t think the downriggers catch enough fish,” Oram said.
Oram said that when fishing with Dipsies, there’s a dial on them with three settings. By using the different settings, an angler can have three lines out on one side, with Dipsies taking one’s lines straight back or off to the left or right without getting line tangles.
Thus, Oram added, he can have six lines out at once by fishing both sides. By having them all at slightly different depths, you can find out relatively fast what depth or lure works best.
“And once you start catching fish on one line (or one lure), you can quickly make adjustments,” he said.
When using Dipsies, Oram uses 8-foot rods and bait casting reels with line counters (which tell you how much line has been let out), a 20- to 30-pound braid line and about an 8-foot fluorocarbon leader on each. With a Dipsy attached to the line, one controls the depth of the lure by the amount of line let out. Oram says he has a chart aboard his boat that he refers to help with this.
Options for lures when using Dipsies, he said, include stickbaits, worm harnesses, spoons or worm burners (spoons that allow one to attach a worm to it).
Oram said his years of fishing with Dipsies have reinforced the fact that the color of the Dipsy has little effect on the bite. The color of the stickbait, spoon or worm harness — is more of a factor. Also, at times, adding a live night crawler to the lure can help.
“I like to start with a variety of colors and let the fish tell me what colors they prefer that day,” he said. “Walleye are finicky. Some days, they want just a certain color, at a certain speed, at a certain depth.
“And when the school of fish is big, and the bite is on, the colors don’t really matter at times.”
The day we went out, Oram had us using stickbaits at around 65 feet down. We were over anywhere from 150 to 135 of water.
Oram said his biggest Lake Erie walleye to date weighed 12 pounds and measured around 31 inches. “I’ve caught lots weighing 10 pounds. They were in length anywhere from 29 to 32 inches.”
He said his past year was the warmest the lake has ever been and warmed the earliest on record. He said the fish travel where the bait (most often shad and smelt) are. “Where the bait sets up is often determined by water temperature and currents in the lake,” he said.
That can change each year. Where he caught lots of fish one year can be unproductive the next. Oram said the key is getting out fishing as often as possible to determine where the schools of bait are and what areas of the lake and depth the walleye that follow are located.
As for fishing with Dispy Divers for other species of fish, Oram notes that “you can run them for salmon and steelhead as well.”
“In the middle of the summer, I take my walleye gear on Lake Ontario, and the guys all laugh at me. I just run my walleye spread, and there are days I catch as many as the best charter boat captains there,” he said.
David Figura is the retired outdoors writer for The Post-Stand newspaper and the Syracuse.com and NYup.com websites. He’s also the author of “So What Are the Guys Doing?” – a book about how men are handling the mid-life years.
Military vet’s and volunteer fishing guide hosts began to gather at Chadwick Bay Marina in Dunkirk Harbor at this early hour. Their mission for the day? To fish for walleye on the Lake Erie waters of Chautauqua County, NY. I could feel there was electricity in the air. Good energy! To help control over-crowding at the event, the veterans were asked to pre-register and numbers were capped at 145. Yet, these numbers grew on site and who could say no to our dedicated military and wartime veterans?
