Forcing the Bite
By Perry GoodWhen finicky walleyes won't cooperate, try these luck-changing tactics.
About this time each year, visions of classic walleye fishing trips fill anglers' brains. Fish are on a tear below the boat, slamming your Lindy rigs or jig-and-minnow combos while you expertly back troll through a picture-perfect chop. The whole experience culminates in a 26-inch golden walleye with massive shoulders and a photo-op that deserves the front cover of In-Fish.
Reality check!
Hey, with all the excellent walleye water in the Great Lakes region, you'll experience magazine cover-style success, eventually. But as any seasoned walleye angler knows, challenging days are much more common. Walleyes are the proverbial picky eater, and on most days, especially in May and June, and anytime a cold sharp front moves through, you'll find them in a negative feeding state. That's not a bad thing. In fact, the challenge of catching these moody fish keeps me coming back for more every spring.
When encountering these tough bites, I start with finesse. Walleyes often enter a post-spawn, lethargic phase. This period through their transition time around Memorial Day can be one of the toughest times of years for walleyes. They're often spread out as they move from spawning and shallow feeding areas to summer haunts. Fishing Wisconsin's Winnebago system during the PWT tournament in April, we encountered fish scattered and in a complete funk following a storm that turned the main lake into chocolate milk. My partner and I found fish in the Wolf River thanks to two factors. First, the water was slightly clearer in the river (3 inches of visibility versus 1 inch). River fish seem less likely to shut down following a front than their lake brethren, perhaps because they live in more variable conditions. Secondly, they were less scattered, which allowed us to focus on their usual 8- 10-foot spring haunts.
We had success working the most subtle of finesse bait: the simple three-way rig. Using a 10-inch dropshot and about a 5-foot snell, I ran an orange hook with a 1-inch chunk of crawler. We weren't catching big fish, but we were catching fish, and in a tough bite, that kept us in the game. In between, we casted jigs tipped with one inch of crawler. When fishing this method, use your longest rods to get the lure well away from the boat. Just tickle the bottom with your jig, or even try jig trolling very slowly.
When finesse fails, I jump immediately to creating reaction bites. By definition this means passing a large lure near fish and eliciting a strike. Maybe that fish isn't even hungry, but the flash and speed of your offering brings out his natural beast. Before he knows it, you've hooked him.
In this situation, I'll troll or retrieve crankbaits super fast, or rip a blade bait like a sonar or a cicada. The trolling specialists on the pro tours troll as fast as four miles per hour. The Griz - Dick Gryzwinski - has popularized a similar technique called rip-jigging. Take the same jig-and-minnow that your walleyes are ignoring, add a splash of color to the hook via plastics or feather and speed troll through marked fish, giving it an occasional good, hard tug. It's unorthodox, but it works.
Don't focus too much about color, especially in turbid water. Some of the best walleye anglers I know use unpainted lead jigs. On the Great Lakes or other clear water fisheries, I'll start with orange-belied lures, but I always bring an assortment.
So when you encounter those finicky walleyes with your big three-ways and jig-and-minnow, first downsize and work slower. Then, before declaring your trip a bust, ignore finesse and make your presentations as obnoxious as possible underwater. Those big fast-moving cranks and spinners just might land you a cover-quality hero shot.
Perry Good, is a professional walleye angler from Minnesota. He is a Professional Walleye Trail (PWT) Champion and is the only angler who has qualified for every championship on the PWT and RCL tours.
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