Walleye behavioral ?

[shamus]

I was on a lake early this week fishing a pretty significant drop off (6'-30' in 40-50 yards) that lead to a large 30FOW basin. I was catching perch in 8-28FOW and pulled up 2 cigar eyes in 8-10FOW. All of this was in the middle of the day. Would you typically find the larger eyes roaming the larger basin just off the drop off during the middle of the day and expect them to come shallow, up the drop off around sundown?

edit: actually now that I think about it, it was probably more like 6-30 in 20-30yards.

[walleyeking19]

During the day, I'd look for deeper water for the bigger fish...less light will penetrate down there so they may be feeding more. But once it starts getting dark, I'd start looking shallower.

Every lake is different, so i'd just try drilling holes up and down the dropoff till you figure out a pattern

[shamus]

My buddy and I worked that area again last weekend starting at 2:00pm. I found that from the 6' depth moving parallel with the shore line there was another drop out to 17'. So we drilled holes along that line and straight out to 25'(a big backwards "L" pattern from 6'). Right away my buddy caught little perch at various depths but most in the 10-15' range as I was drilling and checking depths.

I was doing a little jigging along the way with red Rattlin Flyer and was pulling fish off the bottom, but they wouldn't commit. I then just placed it on a bucket to deadstick over the 11' depth, straight out from the 6' area.

About 3:00 I pulled a 13" walleye out of that hole. We set up our shelter over that depth figuring we could leave the shelter and work the holes around sunset. Once in the shelter we each just set up deadstick rigs with a bobber and red Aberdeen hook w/ a fathead.

After awhile, with no action (around sunset,) I left the shelter to work the holes jigging and dead sticking the red flyer. Marked a few fish, but again they wouldn't commit. In the meantime my buddy pulled up 2 cigars and 3 13" eye's in about a half hour span over the 11' depth, he was also catching them on my rod that I left behind. I got back in the shelter hoping for more action, but that was it, they were gone.

Not sure what questions this answers as to walleye behavior, but we had fun. Sweet blog. All fish were released.

[TruthWalleyes]

Typically the bigger walleyes will be within a quarter mile of the break during peak daylight times and in transition during the prime times...and not every break is a fishy break.

[tunrevir]

It has been a bit of an odd year this year for walleyes around this area. I have friends that pulled decent fish out of 8 feet over weeds all season long with some nice fish in the 20+ category. I fished alot of my favorite spots and found fish early 14-18" and then had a few spots that only produced 8-12" fish but 6-8 fish a night with an occasional keeper thrown in. That being said, each body of water is different and will have shallow fish and deep fish in the system. I have typically found the big fish shallow near weedbeds worked with a tipup or deadstick but it tends to be a big fish here and there through the winter and a few eaters at early ice. The deeper weedlines adjascent tended to produce multiple catches of 13-19" fish falling for more aggressive jigging. I rarely fish the deeper basin fish if I don't have to but this year the primary bite seemed to stay shallow most of the winter with the intermediate depths producing less fish for me. The weather tends to affect the shallow bite alot more then the deeper bite in my opinion but if you can get the shallow fish to go they are there for the sole reason to feed. The shallow bite can and will heat up towards the end of the season when fish are moving into or nearby spawning shoals and can be awsome if you are there at the right place at the right time. I tend to fish the nearest hard break near the shallows when I know there is spawning habitat nearby. In this instance, I would target the break at the basin rather then the shallows as the fish will chase bait up agaist a hard break and then move into the shallows to feed but they may continue along the breakline looking for a saddle area or flat slightly shallower to move into the shallows to feed rather then swimming up and then into the shallows. No hard and fast rules with fishing and that is what I love about it, trying to figure out where they go and how to catch them.

Tunrevir~