|
June finds us fishing further offshore with jet divers and dipsy divers with spoons as our favorite method of catching suspended walleyes. Blues and greens and silvers work best in the clearer, deeper water. Matching the size of the available baitfish helps. When we fish deep water (60-80 feet is considered deep in Lake Erie), we lower a temperature probe down to try to find a thermocline. Steelhead trout will hang just above the thermocline and readily take a variety of spoons off downriggers and dipseys.
Fall walleyes are generally the largest of the year. In September, we use spoons designed to look like small shad or perch. As the water cools in October, we still use spoons, but start using more and more stickbaits. We look for stained water and use noisy baits. The fish suspend in the late morning and begin feeding very heavily. By November, we slow our retrieve and use large noisy stickbaits, but fewer spoons.
Don't accept slow summertime walleye action. Crank up your outboard and go after them. During midsummer, walleyes stay close to baitfish, leaving large expanses of water without fish. Also, baitfish abundance reduces walleye willingness to chase a lure. Use power trolling to cover lots of water, searching for fish. A spinner rig coupled with livebait provides a strong strike trigger. The spinner blade provides flash and vibration to entice walleyes, as well as, other gamefish. Choose shape and size to match the color of the walleye's preferred baitfish. Lime green, gold, or chartreuse are best where walleyes feed on perch or fathead minnows. Use silver or white combinations of minnows, shad, or smelt as common prey. Troll at 1-1/2 to 2 mph for most situations. Bottom bouncers are another option for summer walleye action. Tie your line to the forward eye of the bouncer, and tie a leader with a spinner rig and crawler to the barrel swivel. Drop it to the bottom and troll parallel to breaks, along deep flats, or across points. For most situations, I prefer a 3-to 4-foot snell with a #2 blade. Choose bouncer weight based on trolling speed and depth of the fish. Carry models form 3/8 to 1- 1/2 ounces. A 3/8-ouncer fishes well from 10 to 15 feet, a 1/2-ouncer down to 25 feet.
The wire arm tapping bottom adds action to livebaits. The position of the lead on the lower leg determines action. Weight near the end of the wire keeps the spinner and bait stable as it drags. Weight farther up the shaft creates a jumpier motion that sometimes entices more fish.
Main-lake bars attract walleyes all summer if perch or other forage are present. Check weedlines on points, offshore humps, and shoreline breaks, concentrating on turns, points, and pockets. Rocky hard-bottom breaklines attract shiners and other crevice dwellers, especially where shallow meets deep with a hard-bottom area in between. These classic spots with small, less-distinct breaks often are neglected by most anglers. Narrows between masses of water create current that funnels plankton from shallower more-fertile bays into deeper open water. Forage species like shad, minnows, and perch collect on lips, weedlines, breaks, rocks, and other features where the neck widens. Points and bars with sandgrass provide a prime haunt for forage-size perch and other prey. Look for sandgrass on sandy flats where other plants can't grow, or on outside weedlines where larger plants don't shade the sandgrass. The largest points extending into the main basin are classic areas. The heaviest concentration of walleyes hold near the most extensive rocky breaks or hard-bottom areas, but smaller groups roam weededges or smaller patches of gravel or rockpiles along the point. Weedlines at night draw walleyes, which during the daytime are shallow and deep, to the deep edge near necks in or around shallow bays and along main-lake bars or points. For a chance at a trophy, try longline trolling with minnow baits.
Walleyes begin the spring season in and around spawning grounds, generally near areas of shallow hard bottom swept by waves and current. Walleyes in natural lakes congregate near inflowing feeder streams, rocky shorelines, or shallow rock humps and reefs, depending on what's available. During the day, walleyes commonly suspend, lie on adjacent flats if cover is present, or use the first drop-offs outside spawning grounds. Available habitat determines how fish relate to the area.
In reservoirs with hard-bottomed feeder streams, they typically run upcurrent at night to spawn on rocky shoals or points, lying in adjacent deeper pools during the day. Some fish may also spawn on main-lake rock points. Walleyes don't necessarily go through a nonfeeding recuperative period after spawning. When food is present on or near spawning grounds, they take advantage of it. Shiners roaming the adjacent flats are fair game. Adult suckers swimming upriver to spawn in the same areas often are too large to eat, but immature fish making a precocious spawning run are eaten on sight. Ciscoes suspending near rock humps are prime fare. And perch gathering to spawn on nearby weed clumps are a favored meal. The point is, during the spawning cycle and immediately thereafter, walleyes aren't necessarily on shallow rocks where they spawned. But they're somewhere nearby, in that section of the lake, lying in cover or actively patrolling in search of a meal.
Source Al Lindner, In-Fisherman
Source Captain Frank Kittrick Johnsonfishing
|
