In fall, walleyes can be anywhere—say, six inches
under the surface in 80 feet of water or tight to bottom in 10 feet.
Sound challenging? It can be, unless you know how walleyes drift
off of structure and suspend in the vicinity of bait. Finding them
is a looking game with quality electronics; catching them is a straining
game with planer boards, spinners and crankbaits. The pattern holds
true wherever you are, from Great Lakes to inland waters, and wherever
walleyes are chasing baitfish. Which, it turns out, is everywhere.
The Baiting Game
The bait connection betrays the walleye’s presence. In fall, when
walleyes ramp up their feeding before winter, the fish will never
be far from food. On the Great Lakes, you might see enormous pods
of one- to three-inch gizzard shad skittering on the surface or
as big blobs on a locator. Shiners and the like herd up as well
on inland waters, and predators are never far behind.
How do you find them? Start looking for structure
on a map and then with electronics. Points, humps and weed edges
are all fair game. But when you look with a quality locator that
pinpoints fish and bait, such as Lowrance’s LCX 104c,
the key is to veer away from the structure and look over open water.
If you’ve seen fish on structure at a certain level—15 feet, for
instance you can bet they’ll be at that same depth over open water,
from hundreds of yards to half a mile away from the structure.
Walleyes will do this day and night. The most important
thing to remember is not to glue yourself to structure the walleyes
will wander away from it if bait is present.
Search Mode
The best way to enter into search mode is to start trolling. This
way you can cover water and zigzag to find fish. It would be far
too time-consuming to jig or live-bait rig. Trolling, on the other
hand, spreads lines to the sides of the boat and behind it—the better
to cover a swath of water at different depths.
I always try to maximize my efforts with the most
rods possible and the greatest coverage. Enter planer boards, the
handy devices that veer lines away from the boat. With them, you
can run more rods without tangling and pull lures through more territory.
My new favorites for boards are from Church Tackle,
which now makes smaller, more manageable models that still track
well away from the boat. The TX-6, which is about the size of a
deck of cards, is great for pulling crankbaits or spinners with
snap weights of up to one ounce.
Anything heavier will sink the board. Even small fish or a piece
of weed will sink it, which is a big help when you’re trying to
keep your lures clean. A large fish will sink the little board
like a bobber—something I love to see. With the TX-12, which is
twice the size of the TX-6, you can get away with weight to two
ounces, which you might need for deep spinnering. Which brings
us to my two favorite offerings in fall. While few people fish
spinners after summertime, the reliable crawler harness keeps
working through October and even into November. You can boost
up a size or two with your spinners in fall to tempt more big
fish. If, for instance, you were using No. 2 blades in summer,
you now might want to try Nos. 4 and 5. The heavier thrum is often
just what the walleyes want when they’re starting to feed with
gusto before winter. If, for instance, you were using No.
2 blades in summer, you now might want to try Nos. 4 and 5. The
heavier thrum is often just what the walleyes want when they’re
starting to feed with gusto before winter. And since baitfish,
more than bugs, are the main course of fall walleyes, try Northland’s
holographic blades. They come in silver shiner,
gold shiner, golden perch and more colors to mimic baitfish.
By November, though, I normally start switching to crankbaits.
You can move them faster and cover more water (2.0 or 2.3 mph
for cranks vs. 1.1 mph for crawlers), and since the fish are so
keyed on baitfish, cranks will often do the job even better. Experiment
with cranks and crawlers to find out. For the lures themselves,
it’s hard to beat Rapala Husky Jerks (in shallow
and deep-running versions), Taildancers and ShadRaps.
Again, match the colors to the prevalent baitfish and conditions—silvers
around shiners and shad, brighter fluorescents in darker or stained
water. You can trick out your lures with additional color with
holoform tap from WTP, formerly known as Witchcraft. Add a strip
of silver or glow to the lure’s sides, something that’s particularly
effective at night. If the structure is particularly steep or
difficult to follow, you might want to try leadcore. I like it
if I’m on a break that twists and turns and I’d have too much
line out with boards. Even in 45 feet of water, you can often
get down to the fish zone with 75 to 85 feet of line out.
