Some Tips for the Night Walleye Bite
By Adam JohnsonFor the next few weeks wherever there are walleyes there will be an awesome night bite. The forage is shallow on the reefs, points, and weed flats. The big schools of walleyes have broken up and little pods of fish are chasing that shallow forage soon after the sun has disappeared. It's a perfect opportunity to get into some of those trophy walleyes that were hard to find during the Dog Days just a few weeks ago.
While you can either cast or troll for the walleyes at night there is one variable that doesn't change for me. I use crankbaits for both presentations.
When I can drift with a light wind and cast a long-thin shallow-diving crankbait over the shallow weeds and sand, that is what you will find me doing. It will surprise you how shallow those walleyes will go under the shadow of darkness. Sometimes I get all my bites when the lure just drops below the surface, just a few feet from shore.
The retrieve is simple. After you cast the lure just keep the retrieve coming back steady and just fast enough to ensure a distinct wobble. You only want that lure running about one to two feet below the surface when you are casting to the shoreline.
As you move into deeper water you can use a deeper diver. Over the vegetation just keep the lure right above the weeds. Any deeper and you are always snagged, too shallow and the fish doesn't even know the lure is there. Night is no time to be thinking you have to be ticking the cover with that lure. Stay just above it for best results.
When the walleyes are in a little deeper water, or on the edge of a sharp dropoff, then moving along that breakline - in the deeper water - and trolling the lure will generate more action. As always, whenever you're using crankbaits it's imperative that you get the lure into the right depth zone. If your sonar is showing the walleyes two feet off the bottom in 17 feet of water you better have that lure running no less than 13 feet deep and no deeper than 15 feet. Any deeper or shallower and that lure is outside the strike zone.
Speed is important when trolling as well. I still use my bow-mounted electric motor to propel the boat when I front troll because I like the fact that it's so nice and quiet. But the one huge advantage to this style of propulsion is that I can get the speed to the desired level, which is slow. As I stated earlier; just fast enough to wobble that lure. Today's bow-mount electric motors are powerful enough to move the boat at the right speed, but energy conscious enough to let you fish all night.
The night bite is always productive when the frost is on the pumpkin. You not only catch lots of big walleyes; there are no bugs either.
Reading Outdoors Archives
