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| Wisconsin is full of great fishing opportunities. We have over 15,000 lakes, including 2 of the worlds largest bodies of fresh water. We have the Mighty Mississippi to the west, which is spectacular fishing. Ice fishing, fly fishing. We have it all. It's truly a blessing to be a Wisconsin Fisherman! |
| Falleyes By Tom Welch |
| There are a lot of guys that don’t understand the happenings of the fall situation with our favorite fish, The Walleye. They seem to have trouble locating them and some guy’s can’t get them located at all. I’ll try to tell you what I have discovered and put to the test for many years and it has worked very well for me producing many meals of this delectable fish. The fall of the year as the waters cool is when the walleyes start to congregate in area’s where there is a lot of feed or baitfish. Walleye’ s need a tremendous amount of food to get ready for a spring spawn. They need to put on the feed bag to get their body’s prepared for winter and an early spring spawn, this is therefore one of the key things to look for, bait fish. There is a couple of ways I do this. |
Here is a picture of a winters
supply of nice eyes
supply of nice eyes
| One is to have good detection equipment that can show submerged bait fish on the screen so you can mark that spot either in your mind, graph it or store it in one form or another until it comes time to use it to locate the walleyes. There will always be a few walleye’s close by. Lets locate baitfish first and then I’ll tell you how I apply that to locating the fish. My first way of locating the baitfish is to watch my locator at all times. Mark locations where you see these baitfish in large schools on your screen. The second way I locate the baitfish is to go out early in the morning, say a half hour before it gets light. I park my boat in area’s such as around big weed beds where I can see the edge of them and wait and listen for activity from feeding fish or see baitfish coming out of the water chased by fish or sometimes just swimming along in schools just under the surface leaving ripples on the surface as they move along. No fishing now, pay attention to what’s happening. You can fish later. Walleyes usually have what some call staging areas where they prepare for the spring movement to the rivers and streams to spawn. These places will be close to areas that have a lot of food available. The baitfish locations mentioned above. A place where they can lay in wait for a feeding cycle to begin and then after that have a place to rest until next cycle. These places will be not to far from the baitfish we were talking about. Look for some deeper water even up to 40 feet in the near vicinity of the baitfish. During daytime hours the fish are usually in the depths and can be caught with any good method whether it be jigging, minnows or crawlers. As evening approaches they will move from the depths to the areas that have a lot of baitfish and the feeding frenzy begins and can continue all night. Jigs, crankbaits crawlers, just about anything will work. Crankbaits seem to be a favorite for a lot of anglers. I personally like big minnows, sometimes up to five inches long. A good locator will show you the fish as they wait for the feeding cycle to begin and they can be stacked 3 to 4 feet thick during the daytime hours in the depths. They will still bite during the day. I’ ve caught and released 60, 70 and 80 fish in one day. As night approaches the fish will be moving from the deeper water to the shallows where the bait fish are abundant and become very active. Sometimes you can see and hear the fish on the surface chasing them. The fish can scatter the baitfish and you may find walleyes at all depths chasing their prey so don’t think you necessarily have to be on the bottom to catch them, they may be at all depths. Watching your locator you may see the baitfish at all depths where earlier you only saw them in schools at one depth. Now for the most important part. The majority of the fish in these staging areas and the biggest fish are females loaded with the eggs that they are going lay in the spring, so I urge you to take only what you need for fish and let the rest go to spawn. It’s easy to get caught up in the catch and here is where the release is most important. I hope this will help you catch some of the most beautiful fish I think there is. Best eating too. If I can help you in any way give a shout for the fishjunky on the website and I’ll try my best to help you out. Have a great fishing trip and keep a tight line. |