Walleye Bait?

[natetrack]

I am having a tough time hooking into walleyes this summer. I know where they are and have been consistently marking them with the fish finder, but nothing I have tried is working. I have tried pulling crank baits, jigs with live bait, jigs with berkley gulp, lindy rigs with minnows leeches and worms, but nothing seems to be working. Fish are in about 25 to 30 feet of water up here in Minnesota.

Any ideas on what might work? Pictures would be great.

Thanks,
Nate

 

[Bubba]

Well, I'm really not the guy to be giving someone else advice on catching them, but I have read alot about them and asked alot of questions to guys that do catch them. For one, Are they showing on the bottom, or suspending? I also know that walleye are one of the most fineky fish you can try to catch, so maybe try varying your presentation? Also, I know colors are a really big thing with walleye....one slight change(Ie. different color jighead) can make all the difference in the world. I've also heard the jigs with feathers on them seem to be big as opposed to regular hair jigs. Just a few things you may can think about....I've been dying to get on them as well, but haven't had any luck. #-o

 

[natetrack]

last weekend they were about 2 feet off the bottom. I swear I tried everything short of throwing the actual tackle box in the lake and didn't even get a bite. Tried all the usual stuff, maybe have to get a little crazy.

 

[Bubba]

I don't honestly know much about it, but have you tried vertically jigging a spoon for them as well?

 

[DahFISH]

I havnt fished for walleyes in years, but when we did we would kill them on a homemade rig my dad came up with. He would put on a leader about 18-20" with a barrel swivel, near the leader knot he would put an egg sinker, at the end of the leader he would snell on 3 hooks and use large night crawlers. Hooked at either end and one in the middle of the worm to keep it from curling up to much and pretty much dead stick it.

 

[DahFISH]

I forgot, that some times when the fish were suspended off the bottom he would use a bait needle to inject a little air into the worm to bring it up off the bottom.

 

[FishingCop]

I am having a tough time hooking into walleyes this summer. I know where they are and have been consistently marking them with the fish finder, but nothing I have tried is working. I have tried pulling crank baits, jigs with live bait, jigs with berkley gulp, lindy rigs with minnows leeches and worms, but nothing seems to be working. Fish are in about 25 to 30 feet of water up here in Minnesota.

Any ideas on what might work? Pictures would be great.

Thanks,
Nate

Nate... Please don't take offense, but I wonder if you know, and can feel, the VERY subtle and istinctive "walleye tap"... I can't tell you how many hundreds of walleyes I missed by not recognizing their very subtle and distictive bite. They are so very soft mouthed and will spit out an artificial and live bait (if they feel the hook) quicker than you can spit - in other words, many times, you don't even know they are on the bait before they are gone......... It takes years (or at least hours) of experience feeling them before you actually realize it's a walleye tapping on your line..... Now, of course, this is different than trolling or fishing the Great Lakes or Canada for walleyes - that is a totally different situation. The small lakes in the midwest hold a lot of walleyes which most anglers never hook because they never realize they had them on...... Just a 2-cent opinion from a guy who has always targeted walleyes - sometimes successfully - sometime not

 

[Mattman]

This time of year my go-to presentations are pulling Shad Raps, snap jigging jig/twister combos, and rigging crawlers.

For fish off the bottom, air in your crawler will get it up to the fish. Cranks obviously. And drop shotting a leech.


This can also be just a flat out hard time to catch fish. Forage is abundant and quite frankly, the fish aren't hungry.

 

[caddyjosh]

Here we use bottom bouncers with a jig and a worm trailer when they go deep

 

[RAPALA]

try bottom bouncers with a 2 ft or 3ft snell worm rig or a wobbler jig or swimming jig tipped with a minnow.THE reason for these two jig is the fall.If you have a jig that fall slow vs a jig like a round headed jig that falls fast .You will catch more fish on a slow fall than a fast fall.And sometimes we as fisherman we jurk to fast instead of wating just a second.also try a bottom bouncer with a #7 or#9 floating rapala with a 4ft leader.

 

[shamoo]

I've seen them caught bouncing a nightcrawler off the bottom while trolling, I;ve also seen them caught late at night on top of a point throwing rapalas.

 

[mtnman]

Stick of Dynamite

 

[sporty]

When I want to catch the eyes I always go back to my bottom bouncer,worm harness with two hooks, color combinations of yellow, yellow/silver, orange, orange/black,purple/yellow/orange with thin strips of beef heart picked up from my local butcher shop, troll slow if that doesn't work , up the speed a little . If you go to fast then you wake up the pike. Works for me ..