Graphing for Walleye

[GoneFishingLTN]

So I don’t know if I did it right, when graphing the lake I was having a lot of trouble SEEING the fish.  With bass I feel confident just knowing they should be at x location and don’t need to SEE them but for walleye when reading up on it I see people graphing until they see the dots(the fish)

 

by the end of the day I just was casting towards some rock and got one but it was never seen on the unit. 
 

so do you graph until you see walleye/fish or just fish the high % area with never seeing fish of any kind

[slonezp]

Please explain to me how one can tell what species of fish they are looking at based on an image on a graph?

 

Walleye are no different than any other fish. They follow bait and structure.

 

Different species of fish relate to different types of structure but, that doesn't mean structure doesn't overlap from species to species. 

 

If you're going to target walleye, first thing you need to do is fish water with a decent population of walleye.  No need to waste time targeting them if they are only 5% of the fish population. Fish the same structure you would for other fish just tweaking your presentation based on time of year. You're in the Midwest as am I. The colder the water, I'd use a minnow presentation. As the water warms, a worm presentation. As the water warms even more, a leech presentation. As the water cools, a worm presentation, and as the water cools even more, a minnow presentation. 

[Skunkmaster-k]

That’s the way I do it. I graph around until I find three or more that I can see, make a waypoint and come back an hour before sundown and sit on them until they turn on. 

[Fallser]

The only time I do any intensive walleye fishing is when I head up to a lodge in NE Ontario for a week.  The fish finder is basic in the lodge provided boat, but it does the job.  My favorite spot is a mid-lake shoal/hump that comes up from 40 feet to 7 feet.  It normally takes me 15-20 minutes to find the d**n thing each year.  I really should buy a hand held GPS.  When doing my search pattern, I'll see schools of walleye suspended in the deeper water around the hump.  Last year they were suspended in 20 to 25 feet of water.  Once I found the high point I crisscrossed finding the 25 foot line and dropped markers along it.  During the day we fish for smallmouth and pike, in the evening about and hour and half before sunset we set up near the markers and waited.  Once in a while you'll mark a walleye, maybe, could be smallie or a pike, but the main clue is when you see the schools of baitfish on the fish finder.  Once they show up we start catching walleye.  This what we call "Walleye Time"

 

[WRB]

I would call that Mosquito time?

Not being a Canadian Shield walleye angler I have fished Lake of The Woods area Ontario mostly for Musky and a Smallmouth bass along with walleyes for lunch/dinner.

Having used sonar for decades I did take a portable unit to locate off shore summer Lake Trout. What I discover was walleyes are similar to LMB and locate wherever baitfish are concentrated. My in-laws and locals fish for walleyes around reefs with weed beds primarily, the same location muskies prefer.

I did meter baitfish schools close to step banks and islands with floating weed mats against the shore, classic LMB location. Using soft plastic grubs caught some really nice 3 lb to 4 lb walleyes. My in-laws have been fishing LOW for over 50 years and never tried floating weed mates near the bank!

Walleyes are baitfish eater, find the bait.

Sonar only sees the fish air ladder and unlike bass walleyes tend to be moving so the marks can be elongated.

Tom

 

[TnRiver46]

I just drag a worm of crankbait on the bottom , no graph required. Walleye love the bottom unless it’s a shad spawn at 3-4 am 

[casts_by_fly]

14 hours ago, GoneFishingLTN said:

So I don’t know if I did it right, when graphing the lake I was having a lot of trouble SEEING the fish.  With bass I feel confident just knowing they should be at x location and don’t need to SEE them but for walleye when reading up on it I see people graphing until they see the dots(the fish)

 

by the end of the day I just was casting towards some rock and got one but it was never seen on the unit. 
 

so do you graph until you see walleye/fish or just fish the high % area with never seeing fish of any kind

 

Not sure your experience with fishfinders, so forgive me if this is my version of teaching egg sucking.  But a couple basic things:

 

1- The shallower the water the more you have to be right on top of them unless you have some version of side imaging.  A 60 degree cone angle (common for 2D) will have a span of about 15% more than your depth.  So in 5' of water, you've got a beam covering about 5.5' wide.  Assuming the fish are on the bottom, your boat has to pass directly over them.  If you're in 60' of water, you get about 69' of coverage.  So you get about 35' either side of the boat which is an underhand flick cast.

 

2- 2D is good for showing fish arches of they are off the bottom, but only if you have it set up well.  I wondered for a long time why I never saw arches and just got dots.  Increasing scroll speed on the FF was the answer.  I now run it 2-3 speeds higher than I used to and the imaging is better.  Clarity, sensitivity, contrast, and other settings in your unit will vary so look up a tutorial on your unit specifically and FF generally to dial in the settings.

 

For me as a bass fisherman, I don't look for fish specifically, but look for cover and structure.  Seeing fish is nice but not my goal.  I want the clearest picture of the other stuff.  That said, when I'm crossing the big lakes and just scanning I like to see what else is down there.  I have a couple lakes around that I want to go troll, but just never really got into that.

 

And when all else fails, throw a whopper plopper at dusk/dawn.  Never know what you're going to catch (like this walleye and others next to it).

 

thanks

rick

[gim]

I used to walleye fish a lot.  Not so much anymore.  But my parents still fish competitively on a state-run circuit so I'm still kinda in the know through them, and when I fish with them.  Photos attached are sizable walleyes they caught at Lake of the Woods last season.

 

Assuming there is a reasonable population of them in the lake/river, as some have already mentioned, low light periods will greatly improve your odds of success.  Sunrise, sunset, night time, or day time when its cloudy/overcast/rainy with a good "chop" of waves on the surface are ideal conditions.  Sunny, calm, warm days are the worst.  You're almost better off not even trying to be honest.

 

Early in the season, a jig and minnow presentation is hard to beat when the water is cold.  Trolling crankbaits can also be productive.  Once the water reaches 60, forget minnows.  Switch to nightcrawlers or leeches or you can still use crank baits.  Trolling is extremely effective all season with lead core or down riggers.  Trolling just isn't my style as I find it boring nowadays.

 

If the water is clear, its going to be tough during daytime.  I would go back at night.  Mark some humps, rock piles, and ledges during the day on your GPS and come back to them at night with a lighted slip bobber and a leech.  Stay off the structure and cast to it, which will avoid spooking fish.  This is how I spent most of my walleye fishing days on the water and we had some epic outings during the middle of the night.

 

Lastly, whatever presentation you are using, keep it within about 15 inches of the bottom.  Walleyes almost exclusively feed near the bottom so having your lure or bait in the strike zone is essential.

 

For those of you commenting on your experience in Canada, that is not really helping here.  Its very easy to catch them in Canada.  Its not really even close to the same as trying to catch them here in the states.  You could be the worst walleye angler on the planet and still bag a limit of walleye there in a short period of time.  I know because I have distant cousins who do it every spring.  They downright suck at fishing here in MN, but in Canada they are pros because of how easy it is.

 

[Further North]

A basic question:

Why do you feel like you need to see the fish?

Look for and ID the structure the fish relate to and fish it.

It'll pay off. 

Fishing isn't a video game.  Don't get wrapped up in the images we see now and then that represent perfect conditions where we can see see our target fish, baitfish, and structure.

 

[gim]

7 hours ago, Further North said:

Why do you feel like you need to see the fish?

Usually I have a much easier time seeing walleyes on the graph than I do bass because I'm often fishing much deeper.  Traditional 2-D sonar will pick up arcs a lot easier in 25 or 30 feet of water without any weeds than it will in 8 feet of water in thick weeds.  Plus the deeper the fish are, the less likely they are to be spooked by the boat.