When you look at a lot of lakes in northern Canada or northern Manitoba specifically, they have tullibees or whitefish as the primary forage. They need that type of forage base to drive some of these fisheries to grow big pike, big lake trout, and big walleyes.
What’s interesting is seeing walleyes really keying in on a tullibee or a cisco forage base. Those tullibee or cisco will pull out over deeper water come mid-summer, pulling the big walleye with them. They’ll pull these walleyes off of isolated pieces of structure that are close to that deep water.
When the walleyes go out, they feed on these tullibee or cisco, then come back to the structure to rest. I think a lot of times walleye anglers think of walleyes moving up on the structure to eat. They move up on the structure and become active. On these bodies of water with this type of forage, it’s often the opposite. When you combine walleyes and pelagic baitfish come midsummer, these walleyes will feed suspended over deeper water and then move up on the structure to rest.
Often these fish will be laying in the rocks, or on the bottom. Sometimes you have to be a little bit more methodical and patient with these fish in the sense that it can be a tough bite or a real fickle bite and then all of a sudden, an hour or two goes by, and the fish start to lift up off the bottom and start to head out to eat.
That’s that prime window where you’ll get these fish to really snap. Don’t be afraid to go out over deep water late summer or early fall, use your electronics to find suspended walleye, chasing tullibee or cisco on fisheries that have them.
