Walleye Fishing Tips?

[Danny in CO]

I grew up in southeast Texas and fished for bass, crappie, and saltwater with lots of luck. I now live in Colorado and have been fishing in several lakes in Colorado and Wyoming with NO luck. None, nada, zilch! It seems that walleye are more plentiful in these lakes and is what people fish for. We fished Glendo Resevoir in Wyoming this past weekend. There was a walleye tournment and lots of walleye were caught. Not us! No bites even. Does anyone have tips for catching walleye? We have tried live bait (worms and leaches), jigs, jigs with spinners, crank baits, and trolling. NO luck.

Please tell me how to hold my mouth to catch walleye! Please be specific on types of lures, or line setups, etc.

Thanks in advance!

 

[rdny041285]

Re: Walleye Fishing Tips?

I have been fishing walleye my whole life in NY for about 15 years now...Now im sure the place that you fish can be different obviously but what always worked great for me, And i have fished plenty of tournaments for walleye and have done very well, I used a black and purple jig...the jig head was black and had green eyes and then the hair around the hook was black and purple....weight differs depending on how fast the water is moving....heavier jig for rougher days....problem is, the jigs we used were customer made and a lot of people used jigs that looked kind of like ours and couldnt catch anything on those. I now live in South Florida so i dont think i have anymore of those but i will look when i get home to make sure and i can take a picture and post it on here....but anyway, we used the jigs tipped with a half worm or a leech.

 

[Bass Man Bruce]

Re: Walleye Fishing Tips?

If your used to Bass and Crappie, Walleye in a lake that gets any pressure (at least the ones I've been on around Mich and Wisconsin) are gonna be tough.
I've been hunting them for years and still consider myself a novice.
To me rule #1 is fish after dark. I like to troll "lip baits" right on the edge of drop-offs that abutt feeding areas.
During the day I use 1/8 and 1/4 ounce jigs (yellow and chartruese are my favs) with whole crawler, leach or minnow, again I hit the top, bottom, and along the drop-off.
Wind drifting with the jig setup or a crawler harness will also work.
A "stinger hook" and a sensetive touch are often helpfull as their bite can be very light, and they are touchy.
The best day I ever had on 'Eyes was on a hard hit lake in the middle of a sunny day right on the edge of a swimming beach! We were catching them like they were little bluegills!! Go figure!!!
Good luck, and when you get em GOOD EATING!!!

Shoot, I forgot to add, I have trolled a small lifetime away day and nite, sometimes productive, always fun!!

 

[Silvertip]

Re: Walleye Fishing Tips?

Walleye fishing is an artform and that artform varies by the type of water they inhabit. I am off to my favorite walleye haunt for a weeks worth of crappie, musky and walleye fishing and expect the first two days to be a learning experience. It has been that way for many years. Water conditions change quickly, often and in different ways so you simply start by asking at the local bait shop what's been working and where. Some are honest, some aren't but at least you have a 50-50 chance of getting the truth. Survey the body of water. Locals have their prime spots. If you see a cluster of boats, there is a pretty good chance they are on fish. Watch what they are doing (use binoculars if necessary). But be a sport and don't crowd in on them. Study the structure and look for other similar shoreline and/or bottom contours (a lake map is essential to determine where these boats are sitting and then finding other spots like it). Note that no serious fisherperson will stay on a site if a "stranger" moves in. Because the person left does not necessarily mean the fish quit biting. It may be the guy simply doesn't want you see how or exactly where he was fishing. Time of day and lure/presentation techniques come into play. My standby is a red and white tube jig on a white jig head with black/yellow eyes, and tipped with a minnow.
Very slow troll or wind drift generally in shady areas as walleye do not generally like bright sunlight. Stained water helps in this regard. Trolling stick baits can work as well but depth needs to be controlled carefully. I've trolled when you needed to be at 2.6 - 2.9 MPH to catch them. I've also trolled at sub 1 MPH speeds as over that produced nothing. Lindy Rigs, bottom bouncers, jigging, late evening and early morning are all tried and true lures and techniques. Weather changes obviously influence activity. Chartruese is a popular grub/fuzzy grub lure, again tipped with a minnow. When walleye fishing -- SLOOOOOWWWW ---- and a deft touch are generally required. The familiar tap-tap of a walleye bite is best felt with a spinning rod, open bail, and line passed over your index finger. When you feel the tap immediately play out a little line and a couple seconds later set the hook. You may miss 5 out of 10 times. If they bite short, use a stinger hook on a jig with the additional loop for the stinger. Work at it. But the single most important walleye tip is to fish in lakes that actually have walleye/sauger in them.

 

[PAkev]

Re: Walleye Fishing Tips?

My best success with eyes have usually been by trolling with planer boards. (Trolling is legal in PA) This keeps your presentation in another zip code than the propwash from the boat . A firetiger husky jerk and 4" grandma are my best producers followed by smithwick rogues and bait rigs.

I mostly catch and release but Its hard to rival a tasty flaky walleye fillet and usually cull for the best size of a single fish.

Some other posters also afforded good advice to help your success.
Keep your chin up and sooner than later you'll be looking into walleys eyes.

Good Luck and keep us posted

 

[munsen21]

Re: Walleye Fishing Tips?

Airport Bay, Goose island, Sandy beach and the rock faces off the main dock are my favorites for eyes. Try scaling down with light jigs red, green tipped with half a worm. Slowly drift over any breaks, rocks, sand bars, you'll catch something. Glendo slows down as it gets hot and they start to drain it. Off of the main dock by the marine you can hit walleyes early in the morning and toward dark you can throug 3-4" wally divers. I have best luck on reds, silvers, and tiger stripe. You will get hit just like a bass as soon as it hits the surface if you find them in close. You might be surprised to use some of your crappie supplies to slowly and lightly catch some huge fish! There are some crappie in there as well as some huge perch and catfish.
A new trick I like to try is 3"sassy shad with a red or green head throw it in the rough stuff. They'll be there! Don't get caught doing the same old slow boring trolling unless you have a TON of beer.

Good luck!
munsen21

 

[BF]

Re: Walleye Fishing Tips?

walleye aren't my favorite to fish for... but the standard rig in these parts is a nightcrawler on the type of worm harness that has the spinner on it. Then a line weight a foot or so in front of it. If there is a breeze, just drifting and bouncing that on the bottom, or if it's dead calm, do sloowww trolling or even back trolling occasionally bouncing on bottom. Sometimes a jig or twister with minnow, leech or crawler works better, but crawler harness seem to be the "go to" setup most of the time.

Here's a tip... rip a twister tail into little balls and put one on your hook after you put the worm on to keep it on the hook. We're barbless here, so worms wouldn't stay on well without the piece of twister.

Walleye tend to school up, so if you catch one, stay around that area for a while.

 

[rdny041285]

Re: Walleye Fishing Tips?

In my opinion, walleye are the most fun to fish for an best tasting....unfortunately i recently moved from NY to FL and ive tried some of the best fish down here including mahi mahi and i still believe walleye is best.

 

[BF]

Re: Walleye Fishing Tips?

what you say is interesting because there are guys that are just true walleye nuts (like my Dad).... it's the only species that he'll go out and target... if it's slow, so be it, but he'll just keep fishin' them. That's what I thought fishing was as a kid, but now I've tried other things and found I enjoy it more. I've taken my Dad out for small mouth a few times... I think he was pleasantly surprised at how much action we had. I tease him that if he's not bouncing a worm on the bottom, he's lost. He thinks I don't have enough patience. We're probably both right. If I really want to get his goat, I tell him that walleye is over-rated as table fare. Now that I'm pretty good at doing boneless pike fillets, I have surprised several people with how tasty cold water pike can be.