Help me fine tune placement...

[Dances with Walleye]

Okay... So I've run into this problem twice in a row now...

We set up on this hidden little gem of a small lake...

Normally in summer it's a very weedy lake... Majority of it is shallow, through there are some parts that are 20 foot of water.

We pop holes finding the weedline and then set up just outside of it, almost kissing the weedline with the holes that are on the weedline side of the house.

Then all the walleye are caught on the sandy side of the house. (Thankfully by me and my trusty sweedish pimple.)

But still that's just a 5 foot difference between my hole and my buddy's!

During the day we get a decent bite, have a good time...

Night comes and BOOM... Everything goes dead.

The handful of people I've talked to said "When it's prime time head to the weedline." Well I spent all day on the weedline with a productive bite...

Prime time comes and it's dead water at the weedline.

So I'm kind of stuck wondering... Do we set up our Primetime area thicker into the weeds, or out more towards deeper water?

Anyone have some insights?

[Jim Hudson]

Dances

During the day you say you are catching these walleyes right on the weedline?

If so, the walleyes are probably moving into the weeds and shallower at night to feed.. Walleyes have no problems cruising through the weeds to chow down.. And sometimes will even stick it out in the weeds through the day.. Try moving up in there a bit and see if that helps.. Only problem, is the walleyes will be cruising and could be anywhere in the weeds... So look to your weedline for an abnormality to funnel the walleyes into the weeds.. Check for inside turns especially, and move in slightly from there.. These abnormalities on the weedline will hold walleyes and then be a spot where they will access the weeds at night...

[Dances with Walleye]

Quote:

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Dances

During the day you say you are catching these walleyes right on the weedline?

If so, the walleyes are probably moving into the weeds and shallower at night to feed.. Walleyes have no problems cruising through the weeds to chow down.. And sometimes will even stick it out in the weeds through the day.. Try moving up in there a bit and see if that helps.. Only problem, is the walleyes will be cruising and could be anywhere in the weeds... So look to your weedline for an abnormality to funnel the walleyes into the weeds.. Check for inside turns especially, and move in slightly from there.. These abnormalities on the weedline will hold walleyes and then be a spot where they will access the weeds at night...

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You know it also occurs to me... We had a pair of tip ups set on the tops of some shallow weeds, and we kept getting a ton of false flags... Moved the tip ups, and no false flags.

Our intention was to target the small pike in the lake population... We had a mix of small fat heads and shiners, just putting whatever on...

Makes me wonder if those false flags might have been eyes sucking and spitting when we had fatheads on?

[Jim Hudson]

Could definately be the case...

[Team Otter]

I would also look to the inside of the weedline. Another option would be above the weedline. I've seen both scenarios take place.

[cylinder]

Also, look for open areas within the weedbed-- hard sand/gravel spots where no weeds or few weeds are growing.

[Jim Uran]

What's the primary forage base in that lake, sometimes they spend the night chowing down on suspended forage. Does it quit during "the power hour" or when it's completely dark??And if the water clarity is real bad they would be tougher to catch at night you'd think. A lot of scenario's are running through the ol noggin. My guess is this lake has bad clarity that's why it's such a good day bite.

[Dances with Walleye]

Quote:

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What's the primary forage base in that lake, sometimes they spend the night chowing down on suspended forage. Does it quit during "the power hour" or when it's completely dark??And if the water clarity is real bad they would be tougher to catch at night you'd think. A lot of scenario's are running through the ol noggin. My guess is this lake has bad clarity that's why it's such a good day bite.

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Well the 2003 DNR survey said that Perch used to be the main forage base, but that Perch numbers are at record lows.

Water Clarity seems fine... Something like 10-12 feet.

The Walleyes Caught were all Belly to the bottom, Only showed up on the vex for a second before biting, and even then it looked like little more than that the bottom came up 6 inches.

I caught the last and best one exactly as Sun set... And then the entire lake instantly turned off... Not a flag, not a single blip on the vex.

[Willy]

Jim has it nailed. I fish weed walleyes alot all year and often times at night they are right in the thick weeds. Find a hard bottomed area, or depression with sparse weeds and if you can and set up shop, inside weedlines can be good too, but this bite is usually done after the ice gets thicker than 5 inches. Also, right in the thick weeds can be good too, just set your bait so you know it is above the weeds a good distance. 3-4 ft. or so off bottom is usually a pretty safe bet as those walleyes will cruise on top of the weeds and take out any baitfish between the top of the weeds and the bottom of the ice.

If you are getting flags with nothing there, you need to use bigger minnows. Those are just perch of panfish tripping your flags. Use big shiners, chubs, or suckers as a last resort, and you will not get flags very often when nothing is there. IMO using fatheads or small shiners up in these weeds is a waste of time. The eyes up in there are probably munching big bait like shiners, perch, or small panfish so they will have no trouble taking a 4-5 inch minnow.

[Team Otter]

Big bait, big fish. Good point Willy.

[Dances with Walleye]

Quote:

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Jim has it nailed. I fish weed walleyes alot all year and often times at night they are right in the thick weeds. Find a hard bottomed area, or depression with sparse weeds and if you can and set up shop, inside weedlines can be good too, but this bite is usually done after the ice gets thicker than 5 inches. Also, right in the thick weeds can be good too, just set your bait so you know it is above the weeds a good distance. 3-4 ft. or so off bottom is usually a pretty safe bet as those walleyes will cruise on top of the weeds and take out any baitfish between the top of the weeds and the bottom of the ice.

If you are getting flags with nothing there, you need to use bigger minnows. Those are just perch of panfish tripping your flags. Use big shiners, chubs, or suckers as a last resort, and you will not get flags very often when nothing is there. IMO using fatheads or small shiners up in these weeds is a waste of time. The eyes up in there are probably munching big bait like shiners, perch, or small panfish so they will have no trouble taking a 4-5 inch minnow.

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We Select the biggest pig Minnows we can for the tip ups... Shiners or the largest fat heads we can find in the bucket.

*****

Went out yesterday...

There was a lot of suspect and rotten ice... But with popping some holes and testing with the chisel bar we found an inside turn... over top of some shallow weeds. We couldn't get out to the weedline, as it was on the other side of a pressure ridge, which made some evil cracking and shifting when we tested around it.

So we settled in for a day of pike and pan fishing. on a prime inside turn.

All told I caught 6 pike, and 2 Walleye on the day.

And the three of us total pulled in 10 pike, a massive bass (On a Tip up) and my 2 Walleye.

Now as for the Walleye part of the equation...

Walleye number 1... We'd been getting some light bites around 2:00 pm and losing fish on the way up... So I prodded my buddy into dropping the camera... Sure enough there was a cloud of Walleye prowling around the weed tops beneath us... With one just sniffing at my lure... I jigged once, a little too hard, and tapped his nose...

He spooked and ran, but came back seconds later... I watched him on the screen suck in my sweedish pimple... But felt almost nothing on my rod tip... So I set the hook based on the camera image, and yanked him off the screen!

(DANG THAT WAS COOL!)

A succulent and plump 15 incher.

Later on as the sun was just dipping onto the horizon, my buddy hit a Nice Eye... But we lost it in the whole when the fish shook the lure at the bottom of the hole.

10 minutes later I caught him and my buddy nursed him through the hole like it was his own child... A glorious 19.5 incher.

Shortly after that the sun wass down and instantly the water went dead again... Not a single blip on either vex for an hour and a half... and the little we could see when we dropped the camera, looked like completely dead water in all directions.

So on the weedline, and over mid weeds the bite is slammed off once you reach the tail end of dark into night.

But you can still have limited success with the day bite. Despite having fair visability.

****

My current "Theory" is that this is a conditioned response on the part of the Walleyes...

This lake has alot of mid weeds to it, that offer modest but not good cover to pan & forage fish... And I think it makes for good good hunting for the Walleyes (AKA Weedeyes.)

I think they have enough success in the day bite cruising these mid weeds, that they don't need to exercise their night advantage with the fervor of more standard walleye lakes.

This is stocked lake, with very low natural reproduction. And I suspect the weed adaptation for them is conditioning this night shut down...

Because at this point the only option yet untested is to head out and fish the deep sand at night.