Caleb Wistad here, and I just got done catching a limit of walleye after dark here in northern Wisconsin on one of our clear lakes. Catching walleye in very shallow water after dark, when no one is on the lake is something that every angler would jump at the chance for. This is a pattern I’ve been fishing for several years now when the water hits about 58 degrees all the way up to about 70 degrees.
I’ve found it works really, really well on busy weekends such as Memorial Day or 4th of July weekend. Nobody is on the water once the sun goes down. You’ve the lake to yourself even after it’s been a zoo all day because everyone is on the water for the holiday. So basically what I’m doing here fishing one to four feet of water on main lake structure. On points, gravel bars, rock areas, anything like that, that has hard bottom.
Walleye push up past that 10 to 15 foot depth at night, and they move into that really shallow water. That’s why you hear a lot of guys talking about that short primetime bite window. Well, those fish are actually moving through that 10 to 15 foot zone where a lot of guys are fishing “primetime,” and they end up way shallower than most people realize after the primetime bite ends.
So what I’ll do is parallel the break in five or six feet of water. I’ll make casts up ahead of the boat with a three inch paddle tail swim bait. Using a quarter or eighth ounce jig head, I’ll slowly crawl that along and drop it to bottom once in a while, pull it up slowly, crawl it along, just above bottom.
Walleye just smoke this setup. Now, many times these aren’t trophy walleye but they’re that nice eater size, 15 to 20 inches. It’s a great way to fill the live well especially on a busy week, after dark. So get out there and give it a try on a lake by you.
