Home Forums Fishing Freshwater School me up on walleye fishin.

Don’t have local so I’ve never targeted them. Headed over to the boys place in a few weeks, got some good lakes picked out. What’s your go to? Jigs? Plugs? Spinners with worms? Thanks

1/8-3/8 jigs and some authentX paddle tail rubber tails. Work them slow.

Osky

Any specific colors osky?

Walleye are up on the flats right now, finishing up the spawn. Spawn should be over by the time you get to them and the fish will be scattered on flats 6-10ft of water to the first major depth change off the flats to about 20ft.

If you aren’t marking a lot of fish, I would troll lures that you can get away from the boat. You will want to cover water. If you luck into a school, slow down or stop and cast to them.

When I troll in less than 10ft of water, I’ve had good luck with long-line trolling a #9 or #11 floating Rapala. Shallow or medium diving versions of Shad Raps work too. Sometimes I will use a spinner and worm harness with a sinker rather than bottom bouncer so I can get it away from the boat. Planner boards work well to get the lure away from you.

If you do find fish congregated, a slip sinker rig with a slow-death hook and a big chunk of crawler works well. I either drift or use the trolling motor to move just fast enough to get the worm to turn a little.

You fishin the Columbia gooch? Boat finally came in Wednesday, supposed to take a week, week and a half to get er rigged up. I’ll be after walleye in eastern Montana.

I’ve fished the Columbia around Washougal, 205 bridge, and up in Multnomah channel. I prefer the area around Boardman and Irrigon. Better yet, Banks and Roosevelt. Pottholes and Moses Lake are good too.

Are you going to put a bow-mount on it? If so, go 80# thrust and 24v system minimum.

Copy that, water should be pretty clear where we’re gonna be, that’s why I asked, not tryin to 3 pig ya outta a spot😆

No electric motor planned yet, 8 hp kicker gettin installed, 90 main with pump and prop setup, I’ll run the pump from October through bout now, prop for lakes and bays, Columbia from bout now on

There really aren’t any secret spots in WA. There are enough people trying to get them eradicated that it all gets posted on the internet. For numbers, itself hard to beat the Spokane arm flowing into Lake Roosevelt. For big fish, Boardman, OR upstream to the mouth of the Walla Walla River is bound to yield a world record. 20# fish have already been caught.

The bow mount makes boat control really easy. The i-Pilot equipped Minn Kota motors are easy to use. With the 24v battery setup, you can run it pretty steady and have a few days charge. In heavy current, I use the main or kicker for propulsion and the bow mount as a thruster to point the bow. Its pretty slick.

Judman that can be a really specific preference by locality. In northern Canada I like white tails on a motor oil orange jig head, but the jig head color isn’t the end all do all.
I’m sitting here watching heavy rain waiting to get a couple guys on a river and was going to use the orange colored tails to match crayfish colors.
If we do get out the water now is going to be awfully muddy.. trial and error.
If you can find out their favorite prey in that area, matching that color works well. In Minnesota walleyes can be awfully slow biting, maybe where you are too, be patient and take along enough jigs to lose.

Thanks gents, I’ll get a few jig kits ordered up. 👍

If we’re not dragging plugs or we are and find a hot point or rock pile that seems like it’s full of them we’ll anchor up and pitch to them.

For plugs I prefer Rapala JSR7 jointed shadraps in blue, silver, and perch patterns. I also like Rapala DT10s. Berkeley FlickRshad jointeds will catch fish and they’re a little cheaper, but they’re picky about trolling speed and the hooks suck out of the package. For trolling I fish 3 to 12 feet of water and I want the plugs bouncing on the bottom stirring up a dirt cloud. Get a retrieval pole with the coil spring on it from BassPro, it’ll pay for itself in saved $8 plugs pretty quickly.

When we pitch 9 times out of 10 I use a 1/4 oz mushroom head jig head designed for Ned rigs with half a night crawler threaded onto the shank. Get the ones with the brazed on wire barb and not the cast in lead barb, the cast barn is too big to thread into a crawler and the brazed one does a good job of keeping it on the jig. I let it sink to the bottom and gently hop it across the bottom on the retrieve. If I’m not using crawlers I’ll use a Shad colored 3” kick tail jig or a 2” white curly tail.
Better get out there, they’re biting and we’ve been catching.

Good point, I wasn’t sure if live bait is allowed? Tough to beat tipping jigs with crawlers for walleyes.

Osky

Good info, appreciate it.

What lb test you guys using, looks like they got some big chompers.

Slip-bobbers with minnows will catch lots of walleyes once you locate fish.

Back in the 80s, when I was studying how to fish for walleyes, it seemed that the preferred method was to back troll with a 1/64 oz. jig into 4' waves, holding to a rapid depth change from 35' to China.

I run 17lb Pline copolymer on the trolling rods. Flipping rigs are spinning reels loaded up with 10lb Pline.

PS. 9ft salmon/steelhead rods make excellent trolling rods. I’m still using my old Lamiglas Rogue River special and a Shimano Scimitar for trolling rods. I think the longer rods and soft tips are more forgiving when you hit a snag, gives you a minute to hit reverse before it loads up and breaks you off.

Jud… for walleyes I’ve always been happy with 8lb Trilene XL. A lot of times 6lb. I do most of my guiding in Canadian waters and there isn’t much but hard bottom, not many obstructions to deal with.

Some rivers are soft bottom and gunky so a bit heavier is good but if there are a lot of rocks and crud that’s unforgiving too much poundage and it’s a pain to break off when you need to.
Jigging bottom always eats a few jigs.

It’s old school but if you can use worms a Lindy worm rig with the little float could work very well again if the bottom isn’t too snaggy.

This is what works for me in my environment, yours could be a lot different.

Osky

Gracias, you guys been a wealth of knowledge, greatly appreciated.👊🏻

Orders a couple hunert bucks of jig kits, and plug kits today. Worms/live bait are gtg. Hopefully I’ll be postin pics in a bit. Thanks again 👍

Copy that, gotta buncha those!👊🏻

Walleye teeth don’t seem to tear up line like pike or dogfish. You may have to re-tie from time to time, but nothing crazy.

For spinning rods, I use 10# braid with a 15’ 10# fluorocarbon bumper. I use these for everything but trolling.

Trolling rods that I use for bouncers have 20# braid. I add a 20’ fluorocarbon bumper if I’m trolling crankbaits.