There are a lot of unanswered questions surrounding
the early walleye
season like; What kind of lake would be best? How deep will
they be? Will they be holding on rocks orgravel, sand or weeds?
The answers to these questions can be summed up in one simple
term; it all depends. Picking a lake to get the season started
can be as simple as going with a big name like Mille Lacs,
Leech, or Winnebago, etc. They’ve got what it takes,
namely thousands and thousands of walleyes. But along with
all of those fish comes pressure, and lots of it. A better
choice might be a sleeper lake, one that has a decent number
of fish but really isn’t getting the recognition. Sleeper
lakes can be natural producers, or rely on heavy stocking
efforts to support fishable number of walleyes, or could be
a combination of both. It’s the stocked lakes (natural
producing or not) that have the best chance of falling beneath
the radar. Stocking is the wild card as you never know when
a particular class of stocked walleyes is going
to take hold and show up in decent numbers. When it does the
action can be phenomenal, but only if you know the opportunity
is there. DNR websites and stocking information can help,
especially the lake surveys that include test netting results.
Big year classes of fish that stack up back to back can
make for an ideal situation and deserves some opening day
investigation.Professional guide and PWT competitor Richie
Boggs of Nisswa, Minnesota spends countless hours plying the
waters of stocked lakes and offers some early season advice:
“There’s a bunch of lakes in the Brainerd area
that don’t get all that much pressure and are really
good early in the season. What I usually look for are areas
close to any incoming tributaries on the north end of the
lake. Creeks or streams coming in could have attracted spawning
walleyes and the north end of the lake is where the warmer
water usually ends up. It’s also where you can find
weed growth that is more developed and weeds can be a real
key to finding good numbers of early season walleyes.”To
put a few of them in the boat Richie will often employ the
use of a
live bait rig likemany other anglers, but he does it with
a twist; “Instead of the usual rig I’ll crimp
on asplit shot a few feet ahead of a red hook and let out
about a hundred feet of line. All thatline gets the bait away
from the boat which can make a big difference especially when
its calm and I’m dealing with spooky fish. I also like
to use leeches or minnows early in the season as it’s
usually a little to cold for crawlers.” Another technique
he uses when working shallow water (maybe two to three feet
deep), is to troll with the smallest Husky Jerks and let out
about a hundred feet of Fireline.
Dan Plautz went his own way to mail this
giant walleye.
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“I’ll use the tiny cranks when
the wind is blowing and the waves are pounding into a
good area. Wind and waves can turn fish on and bring them
up into really shallow water where they’re often
aggressive enough to chase down a crank bait. It
also allows me to cover some water and up my odds for
finding the biters” Richie will switch up tactics
when he finds fish holed up in smaller areas like on a
rocky bar or reef, or an isolated patch of weeds. “In
that case I’ll drop the anchor and throw out slip
bobbers and leeches and really work the area over. A good
spot can produce a lot of fish if you give it enough time,
and by using a slip bobber you can keep your bait exactly
where you want it.” Professional fisherman and Team
Crestliner member Dan Plautz of Muskego, Wisconsin uses
another approach for finding overlooked walleyes and includes
the use of a fourteen foot jon boat; “In my neck
of the woods there’s a few small lakes in the two
to six hundred acre range that have decent populations
of walleyes but have poor ramps and are tough to get in
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We can still get in there with a jon though, and pretty much
have it to ourselves.” Dan’s top techniques includes
getting on the water early and casting floating cranks and
working the tops of rock humps and weed beds; “We’ve
done really well casting cranks early in the morning and again
just before
dark. During the day I’ll slowly move the boat along
with a Minn Kota and pitch 1/16oz jigs tipped with redtail
chubs and work the weed edges. If there’s enough wind
I’ll drift with a Northland Tackle Roach Rig combined
with a Gum-Drop Floater tipped with a minnow or a big leech
and keep pitching the jig and minnow at the same time. The
little floater will help keep the bait riding just over the
tops of newly emerging weeds where walleyes can get a good
look at it.” Avoiding the crowds is the big draw to
“under the radar walleyes” and in my mind the
key to a quality experience. The extra homework and a little
investigative angling could be well worth effort, especially
when you’ve put it all together and are able to slip
the net under that first fish. There are no guarantees but
that’s part of the challenge, and the fun. See you on
the water.
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