Finding Hard to Find Walleyes
By Rick Olson
Here today,
gone tomorrow. It’s the way of the walleye when it comes to early
fall walleyes, but it’s not all bad. If you can read the
conditions and anticipate their movements you can cash in, and
sometimes with a vengeance.
Late summer
and early fall and be a challenging time, as walleye location and
attitude may vary drastically. Mid to late summer usually makes
for tougher walleye fishing, wherever you are. Instead of being
bunched up in nice, neat, little specific areas, they can be
spread out. Fish that are spread out can be difficult to catch,
and the odds start to work against you. When walleyes feed, they
don’t all do it at the same time. Rather, some will be feeding
actively, some will be starting to get in the mood but won’t move
far to take a bait, and some will be totally inactive. Without the
advantage of a concentration of fish, you may have to get your
bait in front of too many to find the takers.
By late
summer and early fall things start to change, and change for the
better. Water temps begin to cool off and fish start showing up in
concentrations, once again. Walleyes that have been hanging out in
their deeper off shore home for the summer make a move back in on
the rock reefs, bars and shorelines, as well as weedlines that are
still green and healthy. When they finally arrive they’ll be
joining shallow fish that never left and have spent the entire
summer in shallow water. When that happens you have the beginning
of another concentration, which can put the odds in your favor.
One
of the differences between how walleyes relate to early season
structure, versus late, is the fact that they tend to move a
little more shallow when they get active. Instead of finding
walleyes on the deep edge of the first break of a rocky ledge late
summer walleyes will move right up on top of shallow structures
and can be found in just a few feet of water.
The author reveals the secrets to finding big walleyes like
this...
One of the
keys to triggering a good late summer shallow water bite is water
clarity. Most good walleye lakes start the year out with fairly
clear water conditions, but as the season progresses and the
summer sun bears down and pushes water temps into the lukewarm
range, algea blooms begin to explode and the water clarity becomes
greatly diminished. With visibility reduced, walleyes may make
shallow
feeding
movements during the middle of the day. The darker the water
becomes the more likely you are to find good daytime action. Lakes
that remain clear throughout the season, still see the deep to
shallow migration; However, walleyes will be less apt to feed
during the day, and more likely to become active after dark.
Finding
active daytime walleyes, requires a presentation that will let you
cover water quickly. One of the fastest to ways to a bunch of late
summer ‘eyes, is trolling Shad Raps. The Shad Rap is the perfect
bait for trolling shallow water. Shad Raps have probably accounted
for the early demise of more shallow water walleyes than all other
crankbaits combined.
When anglers
start learning the lessons of trolling crankbaits, they often
second guess themselves, and may lack confidence in their bait
selection. By putting the Shad Rap to work, you can spend more
time concentrating on where you put the bait, instead of what bait
your are currently using. If you pull Shad Raps through a likely
looking area, and find no takers, you can be confident that there
wasn’t any active fish present, and should keep on going.
Shallow
water walleyes tend to hang tight to the available cover, and the
key to successful trolling includes getting a bait to run at ’eye
level. That means selecting a crankbait that will run close to the
bottom, without constantly digging in. Shad Raps in sizes 5’s, 7’s
and 9’s, will cover just about any situation you may be faced
with. The number five Shad can get you into five feet of water, or
less, the Seven can cover five to maybe ten, and the Nine can get
you to twenty feet and deeper, depending on what line your using.
By combining
a crankbait with one of the new braided lines, you can achieve
extraordinary diving depths, and may get you up to an additional
ten feet of depth. Another super braid attribute is the fact that
it transfers the action of the bait, to the rod tip, like nothing
else. When running crankbaits close to structure, you’re going to
pickup some junk like moss or weeds, and a fowled bait won’t get
bit. When a bait picks up debris you can see it in your rod tip.
The bait doesn’t vibrate as hard and the rod tip loses it’s
rhythmic twitch; Time to reel it in and clean it off.
Shallow
water walleyes can be extremely spooky, and it may take some extra
line to get the bait back, and away, from the boat, to get them to
take your offering. To keep your boat out of the fish holding
areas, you may want employ the use of a side planer, or trolling
board. One of the small boards, that attaches directly to the
line, can get the job done, and will keep your boat completely out
of the picture. The only problem is that fact that you lose the
ability to see the action in the rod tip. If you feel the need to
use a side planer, you’ll just have to reel in the whole works,
occasionally, to make sure you’re running clean.
While
trolling crankbaits may be the most effective way to find
walleyes, there might be better and quicker ways to put them in
the boat. For example, let’s say that every time you pull your
bait across a certain pointyou nail a fish. You may be better off
marking the spot, and going back to work it with a jig and live
bait combo. Or maybe you’ll want cast a crankbait to the spot on
the spot, and concentrate your fishing time working the most
productive area. Or maybe you’ll decide to stay with what your
doing because it’s working; Whatever it takes.
One of the
best things about fishing, come early fall is the lack of other
anglers. In fact, there may be days when you have an entire lake
to yourself. Just because nobody’s fishing doesn’t mean the fish
are gone. You can bet they’re there and by staying with it you
just might find some of the hottest action of the entire year.
Rick Olson
