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Walleye attracts both recreational fishing enthusiasts and gourmets. With its bristling double dorsal fin and its wide mouth with sharp canines, this predator is a magnificent trophy.
In the kitchen, its exquisite and delicate flesh does honor to the fisherman's table.
Walleye, wary, requires the mastery of several techniques, including the use of soft lures. Where when how?...
We explain everything to make your walleye fishing a success!
Gold in a nutshell
Knowing your fish is an essential criterion for successful fishing.
What should be remembered from gold?
This predator is a percid: it is part of the perch family. Endowed with very good eyesight, it often prefers murky and dimly lit waters, except when hunting in the deep. It mainly hunts at night but also feeds during the day during the spring and autumn seasons. You will find it difficult to cross it in bright sunshine. It lives alone or in small groups for large specimens and it lives in larger groups for regular-sized fish. The walleye most often feeds on live prey, earning it a reputation as a top predator. It hunts by making dazzling attacks.
The breeding season for walleye is from April to May. The female spawns in shallow to moderately deep water, with no current or light current, on a clean bottom. The male watches the nest by attacking anything that approaches it.
When can you fish for walleye?
Gray days are perfect for stocking up on this delicious percid. Larger ones will often be caught in the fall and spring and during heavy rains.
The months of April and May are those of reproduction, so let's try to leave this beautiful fish alone during this period.
Where to fish for walleye?
This predator likes water that is often turbid, with low light. It is therefore often found at depth or in shaded areas. At dawn and dusk, however, it likes to approach the edge to easily catch small fish.
The advantage of fishing walleye with soft lures:
Walleye are not so easily fooled!
Fishing with soft lures allows versatility of presentation. This is an interesting advantage compared to hard lures (crankbaits example: Rapala).
For the predator to decide to attack, you will need to vary the presentations (height of the lure in the water layer and swimming speed) and the animations (waddling up and down your rod or linear recovery). Soft lures offer this diversity of techniques!
Which soft lure to choose for walleye?
The quality of the lure is paramount. So put the odds on your side by choosing a realistic lure whose swimming and vibrations imitate the usual prey of walleye.
It is necessary to provide different sizes and colors of lures to adapt to the desire of the day of the predator; yes, when you have such good taste, you are demanding on your menu!
If you know the local walleye diet during your fishing period (examples: minnows (gobies, smelt...), leeches, crayfish, mudpuppy, earthworms...), you can choose a soft lure that resembles its prey. If you do not yet know its favorite prey, observation and practice will familiarize you with its eating habits. To achieve this, test different lures.
As for the choice of the size of the lure, those from 2 to 5 inches, very flexible, are perfect for fishing vertically or bringing in linear.
As for the color of the lure, in winter, favor white: the small silvery fish flee the cold from the surface, to the delight of walleyes who feel very comfortable in the depths. The rest of the year, plan different colors to vary the pleasures and adapt to your desires of the moment.
You will need to combine your soft lure with a suitable lead head.
Realistic soft lures, mounted on light lead heads, between 1/8 and ¾ ounce give good results lakes, calm waters? , but in the river, you can get walleye sometimes at 40 feet deep with 2 to 3 ounce shot heads. The style and weight of the lead head (jig head) must be chosen according to the depth and current of your body of water. Do not hesitate to make different tests, with each fishing.
The choice of hook that is on your lead head varies depending on your lure.
How to put the lure on the lead head?
For walleye fishing, use round or football or hoof or stand up or wobble jig heads.
Tip for installing the lead head in the axis: present the hook on the profile of the lure in order to know where the tip will come out. Make a mark (a small tear) on the back of the lure, at the exit of the hook.
Then, pass the point through the mouth of the lure and aim for the mark to make it stand out. You are ready to fish for walleye!
Put your line in the water
When putting your lure in the water, the presentation of your bait must be done judiciously. Cast with precision by accompanying the lure to the bottom of the water (most often you will have your attacks very close to the bottom). Then very quickly, control your lure, play on the animations (frequency and amplitude applied to your fishing rod end), by combining fast and jerky animations with larger and slower animations. To help you, think "injured fish" by reproducing erratic movements in your lure. Eventually you'll find the pacing and presentation pitch that works.
In turbulent waters, with current or drift, fast animations with a vertical pull will be one of the most appropriate techniques. In calm waters, waddle vertically a few inches from the bottom (between 1 and 6 inches in general). However, sometimes the walleyes are held in suspension.
What should be remembered?
To be successful in walleye fishing, you must provide the equipment to be able to vary the techniques. This is what makes this fishing interesting: every day is a new challenge to understand how the fish behave today.
Average catches are between 3 and 8 pounds. But, with these tips, you can find yourself in the right place, at the right time, with the right soft lure and the right animation. Do you dare to bet on a walleye over 10 pounds? Show us your trophy in photo friends!
GOOD FISHING TO YOU!
