walleye and stained water

[mrjigger]

I have been fishing on a lake just north of Brainerd quite a bit this year. My family bought a cabin on the lake last year. This spring I did pretty well for walleye's, however, ever since the temps started climbing the water clarity has really declined. I wouldnt call it dirty water, its just alot darker than it was this spring. I cant seem to find the walleyes, or get them to bite. its almost like they cant see the bait/lure. does anyone have any tips for catching walleyes in stained water. Fish locations?

[nofishfisherman]

Once the lakes heat up walleye tend to get tough to find. The lake I usually fish the walleye tend to head toward the flats during the heat of the summer.

Seeing the bait shouldn't be the problem for the walleye since they do most of their feeding in lower light conditions there eyes you would think should adapt to seeing things in dark or low light times. The general rule about color choice usually is when the water is dark use a darker color and when the water is clearer use a lighter color. This is supposed to cut down on the contrast between the bait color and the water color since most natural food sources want to blend in a little to their surroundings.

If I had to guess I would say trolling the flats (if your lake as them) with a leech or crawler would be your best bet to find some fish. Try using an orange spinner or even gold may work.

From my experince I have found the fish tend to be hanging around small structure out on the flats. My lake the flats are about 12 feet deep, so be mindful of very small changes in the bottom or very small areas of structure. I have found fish just hanging around a few logs with nothing else around.

Good Luck

[Willy]

I would look shallow first. If the water is stained, the mornings and evenings might have walleyes using the shallows to feed. Find a weed patch, or rock pile and try pitching jigs or casting to it. If it's really dark, the fish may not turn on until you see some sunlight. Trolling cranks might also be a good way to locate a few. If there is any wind, try fishing that shoreline up shallow. The wind may push bait up in there and the fish right behind it.

[cheesehead]

fish late at night (12:00) and cast shallow running stick baits like a thunderstick into the shallows (1-3 feet deep) near shore on the windblown bank and you'll have a blast. This works best for me in spring and fall but has worked well on cool windy nights all year long.

[danlk]

lots of good ideas. i dont know your lake but alot of stained water lakes have low oxygen levels in deep water weed grow stops at 12 ft in a lot of them i would try hadr bottom areas around weedline preferably some big turn and drop in the day shallow early and troll them flats in the day. i would look at 20ft and shallower. but cruse the the lake and find bait . with yourdepthfinder.

[Team Otter]

I couldn't have said it any better than Willy did. It works.

[eyepatrol]

If it's really stained or murky, I'd also use the brightest, loudest lures I had in my tacklebox. Rattling raps, jigs w/ rattle beads (can't remember the name of the jig), clown or firetiger color. Anything that can get their attention and put more of an advantage on your side.

Last year just after the opener I fished a very murky lake due to the rain and runoff that came into it. I started out with lindy rigs and orange/chartreuse jig and minnow, but that didn't produce. Quickly went to a orange/chartreuse jig with rattle beads, put on the biggest minnows I had and ended up catching 4 'eyes in 2 hours of fishing. Nothing huge and not very big numbers, but it did put fish in the boat. I really jigged the heck out of it too, trying to make the most noise I could possibly make. Every fish I got was right at/below the boat, just before I decided to pull up and make another cast. Probably because the jig wasn't moving horizontally and the fish were able to hone in on its location.

[musky hunter]

Stained water can be a real advantage. All of the above advice is sound. Dark water = shallow water walleyes, you'll never see them on a sonar screen in 2'. If you ever see a new mudline, give it a try. The best walleye fishing I ever had on Winnibigoshis was working a new mudline. Of course, the wind was 35-40 mph, but were the walleyes thick in dark water. It's not that they don't see the bait, it's that the bait is in the wrong location. Keep moving and try different areas and tactics until you locate a pattern, then exploit it. And go shallow, especially early and late.

[slick814]

darker water can be awesome for walleyes. Usually, once the temps start to warm up, I go with a spinner rig tipped with a crawler or half a crawler, depending on if I'm getting bit off or not.

I udually go with a bright blad on the spinner, either a bright hammered copper or gold, blaze orange, or chartreuse. I also like to go with two hooks, with the front one being a glow yellow or chartreuse, back one being red.

The blades make some noise was they go through the water, so I would guess that the rattling cranks or jigs would be effective too, but I have a tendencey to go a slip bobber rig for shallower evening fishing.

[Ranckenstuff]

I like to add Rattles and beads on everything for noise.

[PerchJerker]

Use your sonar in the deeper water (like deeper than 10 feet) and if you're not marking deeper fish (or if you're marking them but not catching them or they're not walleyes), then look shallow. Shallow is less than 4 or 5 feet, you might even find them in 1 or 2 feet or right on the bank. Crankbaits are a great way to search out shallow fish, so are BIG soft plastics. As other posters have said, in stained water you sometimes need to wait for the sun to get up in the sky a ways for the bite to really turn on. I would try bright lures and dark lures, some of my best cranks in stained or muddy water are reds and deep purples.

[tunrevir]

I love to fish the stained water! The bite starts later in the morning and lasts throughout the day often with midday being the peak bite. I usually look for fish in real shallow water and along the edge of available cover. Old downed trees, log jams, floating cattails and pencil reeds all can produce. I use my electronics to find the bottom content, any structure that might give a wayward fish a place to rest and of course look to the shallow weeds. I like rattling raps ripped along shallow flats(2-6') of water. Cold water bite or frontal conditions I downsize and go with a simple spinner rig or beetlespin moved along just fast enough to occassionally tick bottom. Rootbeer colored water, I find is best fished throughout the afternoon and once the sun sets go to a nearby body of water that is clearer and fish or go back to the cabin and have a couple cool ones. The nice part about fishing this type of lake is that you can hit the fish early and throughout the day and then hit another body of water for the evening fish!

Tunrevir~

[ASMOLEY]

I fish the Mississippi a lot in the summer and i don't think you will find with less clarity. The only time it's worth fishing is 10-3 if you go out to early or to late its just to dark. Not saying you won't catch fish but midday has always been more productive for me. My favorite is virtical jigging in stained water as mentioned earlier it will give the walleyes something to home in on. My favorite jig is made by northland tackle Fire-Ball Jig - "Metallic"Check them out they are a little spendy but nothing compares.

[musky hunter]

As for timing, on the St. Louis River, where you have about 8" of visibility, early and late can be real good with transition light. Early and late = shallow fish, daytime = deeper fish. But the fish are active all day throughout the summer.

[fishin24/7]

how are they biting at the scsu dam?