You can find walleye just about anywhere you want to look on area lakes like Gull, North Long, Pelican, and Whitefish Chain, and you can catch them in a variety of ways depending on where you find them.
Up shallow in 6-9 feet, you’ll find fish in the weeds on big flats adjacent to deep water. It’s tough to see fish in the thick vegetation with your electronics, so the best way to locate fish is by first dragging a spinner over the tops of weeds until you get bit. To combat fishing in the weeds, long line spinners far behind the boat with a 1/8 ounce bullet weight and long leader. Ramp up your speed to 1.3mph to keep the spinner above the weeds rather than down in them. The speed also prevents pesky perch and bluegill from constantly pecking at your bait. Crawlers work well, but Berkley Gulp! works just as well and also helps keep bluegill and perch from ripping off your bait. Once you catch a fish, turn around and start casting the spot with a Ned-rigged plastic. These fish are in pods, so when you find one, there’s sure to be a few more where that came from, and casting is an efficient way to stay on them. For Ned rigged plastics, Z-Man Big TRDs and Crush City Ned BLTs work great paired with a 3/16-ounce VMC Ned head. Cast to the weeds and let the Ned rig fall straight to bottom, and let it sit a few seconds, as half the time, you’ll get bit on the initial drop if you’ve made an accurate cast. To work the bait, utilize only small 3-4-inch “bops” or “pops” of the rod. The real beauty of this rig is that while it’s not weedless, you can give it a sharp snap to free yourself and continue the presentation. (Try that with live bait!) The sharp snap keeps you fishing during your cast and is critical for triggering strikes, as the other half of the bites during the presentation will come after snapping out of weeds.
Off the weed edge in 15-19 feet, you’ll find walleye roaming the outside weed line. Here, a drop shot is key. The bottom just outside the weeds is coated in a thick slim, so the drop shot helps keep the bait above the slime free and clear. The rig should consist of a 3/8 ounce bell style VMC tungsten drop shot weight for versatility in cover types and a fast fall rate to get to bottom quickly. 12-18 inches above your weight, tie a #2 VMC finesse neko hook and attach 3/4s of a night crawler. Keep the worm in place as long as possible by not moving the weight and incorporating pops on a semi-slack line to the crawler to give it an undulating action in place.
If you’re into low odds with a big reward, pan out beyond the weeds with forward-facing sonar to find single suspended fish over deep water. These fish respond well to a 3/16ounce jig and crawler or a mooch minnow if long casts beyond 60 feet are required. Hover the jig over the fish while slowly undulating it back to the boat with little pops of the rod. These fish can be 12-24 feet down in up to 40 feet of water, so consider that deeper stuff if you’re looking for one big bite. You can find a lot of fish out here, but on lakes like Pelican and North Long, half the fish you see will be willing to bite, while on whitefish and Gull, it’s 1 in every 50 marked fish that will bite. This tactic is good if you’re looking for one big bite in a tournament situation or want to hold a true Minnesota giant in your hands. Remember, fish deeper than 25 feet can experience barotrauma, so it is good to leave those fish alone to reduce mortality in the fish population.
When all else fails, and a clean bottom is present, casting a jigging rap will get you reaction bites as they can’t stand those things whizzing by their heads even when in a negative to neutral mood.
Brett McComas of Target Walleye
https://targetwalleye.com
