Adam Johnson Outdoors • Reading Outdoors

Walleyes From A Bass Boat

By Adam Johnson

First things first. You don't need a walleye boat and all the walleye hardware to catch walleyes. I fish them all over my home state of Minnesota with my bass boat and bass gear. You just need to understand the species. Once that is accomplished, catching walleyes is just a matter of persistence.

It pays to have a good sonar. Walleyes spend most of the months of July, August and September in deep water and they'll be tightly schooled. If you know what a school of fish looks like on the screen of your sonar, you can find walleyes.

Walleyes like to relate to a structural element right where the top of the thermocline breaks. Find a deep dropoff, a sunken island, a deep rock pile, or a deep channel cut and it's here you find walleyes.

In my bass boat it's the bow-mount electric motor that keeps me in position to target these schools of fish. It's no secret that you can strain a rock pile or the breaklines on a sunken island with ease and with precision with that bow-mount propulsion. A live-bait rig is your number one option with a leech or nightcrawler on it. Downsize the hook, using a number eight for leeches and a number six for nightcrawlers. If you want to add a little attractant slip a few colored beads on the line and tie on a colored floater, which is just a hook with a little ball of foam below the eye.

Walleyes are finicky biters when they're deep. You need to maneuver the boat slowly through the school of fish and concentrate on that light tap you feel when a walleye inhales the bait. Just drag the bait slowly and feed them a little line when you feel the bite.

The best times to be chasing walleyes are in the early morning hours or from dusk until dark. The night bite can be outstanding as well and many times the walleyes will move into shallower water when the sun is completely below the horizon. A good technique at night is to cast or troll the long-thin crankbaits that suspend. Use a slow retrieve over the tops of the mid-depth structure and catch those fish as they come shallower to feed.

In just a few weeks we'll be tossing lead and steel at squirrels and grouse and geese. That doesn't give us much time to get in our fair share of walleye fishing, so when you're on the water make sure you keep your boat over fish and your bait wet, no matter what kind of watercraft you fish from.