where have the walleyes gone
By tod conner
Where did the all the fish go? They were here yesterday!! How many times have you heard these comments in the boat?
I have heard my share of those times when seemingly for no reason the fish just were gone from a spot one day to the next. What you do when that happens is look for the reason that it has changed. The reasons that most effect walleyes are cold fronts, baitfish, wind direction or lack of wind and any type of current changes.
Lets start with the most important factor change in our opinion that effects the walleye from day to day, baitfish and wind, these two seem to go hand in hand. Walleyes are eating machines and they will stay where the baitfish are, if the baitfish move so do the walleyes. When we look at baitfish patterns in a lake or river some of the other factors that we mentioned earlier come into effect also, as you will see.
Baitfish have to eat just like walleyes and they follow the zooplankton and small creatures that reside in the body of water that you are fishing. Oxygen and clarity of the water will dictate where these creatures are at a given time in the season. During really hot years or in shallow water, weeds will give off lots of oxygen, which will keep the small organisms and minnows close to the weed beds. Wind is a big factor here also. If the wind has been steady out of one direction or the wind has been relatively calm for a day or so, the zooplankton and such will remain the same area, thus the baitfish and walleyes will be there as well. When the wind changes direction or blows hard, it pushes the zooplankton and baitfish in the direction that the waves are going. We have seen this many times on Lake Erie or Saginaw Bay. We may be on fish for 2 days with a north wind and then we would get a wind change from the south and find our school of fish has moved 1- 2 miles north of our last day's waypoints. Watch your plotter on a day that it is windy and you can actually see the shift of the school. We use our Lowrance LMS 350A or 160 to put Icons on each fish we catch and throughout the day you will find the icons shifting in the direction that the wind is blowing. Wind also can dictate where the walleyes are by crashing into shore and causing the water to get churned up or in the case of Lake Erie and Saginaw Bay it can muddy the shoreline and lake itself and can turn the fish on by giving the walleyes an edge over the baitfish in the muddier water. Now sometimes the wind can be too strong for a period of time and the water will get too muddy in which case the fish may still be there but cannot see you bait. That is when you look for cleaner water to have yourself a better chance at finding another school.
Cold fronts are a fishermen's nightmare, whether it is a big front or a small one the all seem to have an effect on walleye behavior in some way, and they always seem to happen the day after you find a good school of fish o to us, it seems like it always hit the night before a tournament. This situation is a little tougher than the others but you can still get fish to bite you just have to change your presentation. How many times have you hammered the walleyes on crankbaits all day then a small front moves through that night and maybe drops the temperature 5 - 10 degrees and you go out and try to use your cranks to no avail. Walleyes that were very active the day before may be in a more neutral pattern after a front. We always watch the weather and its relation to the where the fish are in the water column. If the fish were hitting cranks 10 - 14' down in 25' of water the day before and now the fish are showing up on the graph 20' to bottom we realize right away that we have to change tactics from the day before. Sometimes it's a little thing like changing to a slower speed, or switching to a less erratic crankbait or spoon. We like to use Stinger Scorpion 2" and the 4" Stinger Spoon sometimes when the fish are lass active. The slow side to side wobble of a spoon sometimes is all it takes when the fish are in that neutral mood. We will run them with snap weights or bottom bouncers to got them down to the fish. The small Scorpion spoons will sometimes trigger a strike when crankbaits are not working.
One of the best baits for walleyes after a cold front is the nightcrawler. We use spinner harnesses with crawlers on bottom bouncers the majority of the time after a front or on the neutral walleyes year round. We have found that the more neutral the fish the slower we go and the smaller the blade we will use. Just try and keep it as an easy meal for them and you will help your chances greatly. Remember these fish are not very active and will most likely bite very light. If you are running small planer boards you have to watch very close to see the bites or add on the tattleflag kits that Offshore Tackle has for the Offshore OR-12 Planer boards. We would not go out with them, there has been too many times that we have seen the flag go down about an inch without the board moving and we would set the hook and have a 6 lb. plus fish on the line.
Current flows on the great lakes are an overlooked factor in walleye fishing lots of times in the great lakes there can be current flowing one direction for a few days then switch to the opposite direction for a while. This can have a big effect on walleyes and about the only way to tell is if you have a speed indicator on a downrigger. Since we do not have an indicator we rely on the Okuma counter reels that we use. If we were using a 2 oz. bottom bouncer 30' back and hitting bottom going south we need35' to hot going north at the same speed we know there is a current in that area of the lake. We then try to see if we are catching more fish going down current or up current, then set up to always run in that direction.
Remember if the fish are not where they were the day before remember to think about all the possible reasons for their departure from you hotspot and it may just put you back on the school and save a possible boring day trolling unproductive water.
Tod
