The biggest pike I've ever seen took my sky blue over white 3" floating rappala in the Boundary Waters. I didn't have a wire leader, and he cut the line before I even had a chance to set the hook. I have always done well casting for pike with similar lures although I usually use a black over white version. I also did well on that trip with red and white Daredevil spoons. I caught everything casting from the shore on small islands.

One of the best days of fishing Ive ever had was fishing for pike on a pretty secluded lake in NW ontario with my great uncle 10 years or so back. I landed over 2 dozen fish by myself and I never changed lures: a beat up dare devil in original red and white and missing a good deal of paint before the day started. It was in the 1oz I believe (the "standard" large size, not that super large size that's as big as your palm) Now, I'm sure the conditions were such that I could have thrown anything and caught fish, but that was the first thing I put on and since it worked and I'm superstitious while fishing I never took it off. It worked all day.

For trolling for either pike/muskie I prefer to use an inline spinner and just jet around shallows, islands, and points.

For walleye...ask someone else, those fish hate me.

late july maybe a tad early but i began running a walk the dog rapala this summer in wisconsin in late july and had tons of strikes biggest being a 31 inch northern on july 25 (just checked fish calendar i made). best luck was with in an hour of dark and your targeting muskies and northern so think mid-level structure about 10-15 ft of water along weed lines.

Where are you going? that late in the year you might want to try snell rigs for walleyes if jigs arent poductive.

Leech has a lot of mid lake structure. That late in summer, you should fish for bass and muskie on or off of structure next to really deep water. they will be deeper than usual in July. I'd try deep diving crank baits and jigs.