With that lake description, I'd start with F-7 or F-9 Floating Rapalas, J-7 Jointed or SSR-5 and SSR-7 Shallow Shad Raps... They dive 2-6 feet... I use them most often because I have collected so many over the years... Firetiger, Hot Steel and Bleeding Olive would all be good in dark water... I fish a tannin stained Flowage in Washburn County and you can't keep the Smallies or Walleye off of #7 Perch Shap Raps 2

 

If the water is that shallow, you will probably want to long line. Get those baits behind the boat as far as possible. Even with darker water, if youre going 3-4 feet over their heads, they will probably spook away from the outboard.

I second floating rapalas. I use the big ol F18 floating rapalas on walleye up north in crystal clear water, when the eyes spook from the motor.

 

On my friends lake in Michigan, we fished in 10-12 feet trolling for walleye. He used a cotton cordel, I use a bagleys db3 and reef runners. However, these would run too deep for your situation.

On a side note, caught my biggest bass ever doing this, on the DB3: 23" cranking at night. Practically had the whole thing in his gullet.

 

I know you are looking for crank bait info but have you tried drifting and vertical jigging? A sonar jigged while you drift over quietly may be a good strat too. Alot of lakes I have fished in Northern Minnesota are very shallow and filled with spooky fish and this has worked for me, particularly at night.

Find a point and jig the deep end of it; I think you will like it.

 

We have been catching walleye and white bass and some n-pike. We have been setting our lines at any where from 15 to 25 feet behind the boat. When the baits start to hit the bottom we crank them up just a little. Seems the fish like to come right up into the prop wash to eat what has been stirred up. Thanks for the info guys. With some more fine tuning we will start to get limits. I have seen others do it but they are all hush hush on what they are using. Binoculars only tell part of the storey. LoL.

 

Try the #4 Salmo hornets, #5 wally divers, smithwick rouges, and the new #4 flicker shads if you can find them.

 

A really awesome lure for what you are doing is the Zam from Zalt lures. They come in floating, suspending and sinking models in small to musky sizes. You won't be sorry you bought one.

 

You can also see some good trolling videos on nextbite.com or just you tube some trolling for walleye vids. Very good to watch. I would grab a small planer board like a church or yellow bird to get them out to side and run some Rapala minnows you can add keel weights if you want to get them a little deeper. Otherwise Crank those Shad raps at dusk.

 

I troll standard #5 and #7 shad raps over 6' flats with cabbage in Northern Wisconsin (also stained water). Throw out 6'-8' of line and run em' right through the weeds. You will have to constantly work at cleaning weeds off lures, but you will be shocked how ballsy Walleye and Pike will be. Watching them hit is the best part. The nice thing is once you weed-up a lure, it floats to the top of the water and tips you off that it needs cleaning. We run 4 lures right off the back and troll with the outboard (2.5 - 3 m.p.h.).

 

#5 flicker shad fire tiger has been the hot bait this year for me

 

give rattlebaits a try, walleye in rivers certainly like them

 

...smithwick rouges...

2

 

I troll standard #5 and #7 shad raps over 6' flats with cabbage in Northern Wisconsin (also stained water). Throw out 6'-8' of line and run em' right through the weeds. You will have to constantly work at cleaning weeds off lures, but you will be shocked how ballsy Walleye and Pike will be. Watching them hit is the best part. The nice thing is once you weed-up a lure, it floats to the top of the water and tips you off that it needs cleaning. We run 4 lures right off the back and troll with the outboard (2.5 - 3 m.p.h.).

I might have to try that if I have the patience to clean weeds. Very Interesting.
You never know if you don't try. 6 to8 feet of line seems awfully short?

 

Jerkin' for weed walleyes is my favorite. Go a little deeper and when you are cleaning off both cabbage and coontail, you're in the right spot. Oh ya, and another vote for firetiger.

 

@ general

I thought that short amount of line was not enough either, but let me explain how we came upon it. I was fishing a lake in northern WI that is about 2,000 acres and has a HUGE 6-7' deep flat that has clumps of weeds everywhere (one of three lakes where outboard motor trolling is legal in the county). We happened upon this lake and this flat while ice fishing. We went back in the spring for the walleye opener. After casting spinnerbaits and swimbaits for about 2 hours and getting nothing, I decided to try trolling the flat. I started with rattletraps, spinnerbaits, and swimbaits. Nothing....and spinnerbaits and rattletraps kept getting weeds. I got tired of reeling in 40 yards of line every 2 minutes, so I shortened the line let out. Then, I threw on a #7 shad rap and within 2 minutes I landed the first northern pike. I switched three lines (trolling four) to shad raps and caught a dozen northern pike (18"-30") and four walleye (18"-22") in the next 1.5 hours. If I was not cleaning weeds from the lure, I was taking a fish off. This technique is a lot of work since you are always messing with the lines, but it works. It is definitely not finesse, but sometimes fish react to brazen tactics. Think of all the water you could cover going 2.5-3 mph with four lines running....most fish will get out of the boat's path, but the more aggressive fish will stay hunkered down in the weeds and sometimes that minnow bait is too tempting.

I am headed "up north" again tonight for a 3 day trip. I will be on this lake tomorrow morning and I will be trolling shad raps 6'-8' off the back of the boat. I will report results in a few days.

 

There's no magic lure for "any" place.When I was up in Canada we trolled and casted for walleye and northern and in those 5 days I used a silver spoon and a rattlin rapala with no lip.Granted I caught more northern with the spoon,but that's to be expected.However,the walleye were hitting this lure so much for me I never changed lures for 3 days straight.Funny thing is,throughout these 3 days 1-2 of friends were using the same exact lure and not having near the luck I was.We had a guy that was changing lures left and right as were trolling,he never did find one that worked.For the most part,when we were trolling I was staying close to the boat.Maybe 10-15 ft max behind it.I think you just have to find the distance and depth that works best on your lake.

 

http://2001alumacraft.shutterfly.com/pictures/28
That one was caught on Friday, 7/1/2011 trolling a #7 jointed Shad Rap. 8 lb. test line made for a fun fight.
http://2001alumacraft.shutterfly.com/pictures/28#27
19.5" smallie caught on the same lure the previous day.

Lots of walleyes (80+) caught on shad raps, glass shad raps, and jointed shad raps in #5's and #7's. 1/2 ounce rattle traps caught some fish too. Flicker shads were tried, but had no success.

 

Well went back on Saturday and using some of your guys suggestions we slammed the walleye. Hot but with a stiff breeze 3 of us got our limits. also caught some w-bass, and n-pike one was 36" All caught trolling 6 to 20 feet behind the boat. Many were released. Thanks for the suggestions on crank baits. One type did out preform all others. You guessed it the expensive kind. Koppers live target at right around $12 a pop. We didn't lose any this time. :-D