Walleye movement in dishpan lakes with no structure

[big bog bobby]

I fish shallow (less than 25' deep) local lakes with no structure, usually from dusk to about 6 pm. I fish for crappies at variable depths in one hole, and put a tip-up nearby with a large rainbow minnow a few inches off bottom.

I catch moderate sized crappies just about anywhere on the lake... and sometimes I catch beautiful strings of walleyes on the tip-up, but never get a walleye bite later than 7 pm.

If I set up in the 25' deep center area of the lakes, I catch mostly bullheads and perch on my tip-up. The best walleye bite has seemed to occur sporadically at 15' to 20' deep just about anywhere around the deeper center area. I can never see the walleyes on my LX-3, until they magically rise off the bottom and take a minnow, so locating them before setting up doesn't seem possible, at least with my present equipment.

Moving to a half-dozen different locations during the bite period doesn't seem to help... I do much better setting up and remaining in one location for the two hour bite period.

Are the walleyes moving in schools like the crappies? Or are they scattered throughout these small lakes? Any suggestions gratefully accepted.

[Team Otter]

I would suspect these fish roam rather than school. I would focus on looking for transition areas with your electronic rather than fish. Transition areas are traffic areas for bait fish and 'eyes, crappies, etc.

[Black_Bay]

Sounds like a good place to try reelweeds. Maybe you can hold the eyes in your location longer.

[RK]

Hiya -

Dishpan lakes can be frustrating. When you get into them, you can REALLY get into them, but it can be very hit or miss. It's always seemed to me that fish on these lakes travel in small groups and really move a lot. You don't get the big massive schools you might see on bigger bodies of water, and spots can get burned rather quickly. On the lakes like this I fish, I try to find bottom transitions if I can, like seams of gravel or weed edges. Even breaks that would be unremarkable on a more complex lake - like a sharp drop of about a foot, or a small depression on a flat - can create travel routes for fish as they mill around. It's like they cruise along the bottom and all of a sudden bump their nose on a little edge, and follow it for a while. You can also fish very shallow on these lakes at times. On one such lake I fish we've caught them through the ice in 4-5 feet of water up in flooded trees. Shallow weeds and rushes can also be good - but these are usually prime time spots rather than mid-day spots. If the fish are consistnelty at a particular depth there, I'd try to figure out why - is it a bottom transition maybe? Or, simply that's where the food is. If you can figure out why there' using that depth range, then you can look for things that might let you focus on a smaller area that has what passes for structure in those kinds of lakes.

good luck - dishpans are a challenge, but if you get them figured out, you can do very well...

Cheers,

Rob Kimm

[Northlander]

Current, feeder creeks or discharge creeks are all places to check. Shallow flats at low light periods. Wood and weeds. Like others have said these lakes can be a exrecise in frustration. Move, move and move some more til you contact fish or something unusual that may hold them. It could be a weed patch or boulders in the middle of nowhere.

[big bog bobby]

Thank you all for your opinions. I notice that most thread-starting posts ask only questions, often without providing a great deal of information. Perhaps some additional observations, and my tentative conclusions, might clarify my original posting.

These small local lakes used to be just panfish lakes, with northerns and a few bass. But, the DNR has been stocking 3,000 walleye fingerlings/fry/yearlings into these lakes every other year for the past 15 years… maybe longer… and a few of these stocked walleyes have managed to survive, even if they don’t reproduce. These lakes are very heavily fished, but most of the fishermen are after panfish, or crappies, or northerns… over a winter season, regular visitors may catch a few walleyes on a crappie or northern setup, but it’s considered a fluke… A few years ago, I started fishing for walleyes first, with some surprisingly good catches early in the ice season, but very inconsistent…

The lake I’ve been fishing most this year is a perfect dishpan, with absolutely no structure. I know this, because I’ve fished it for panfish for 20 years, and I graphed the bottom extensively about 10 years ago with a Sitek(?) paper graph. The water clarity is about 3 feet, and the weed growth stops at about 6 feet deep. A uniform layer of sediment covers a detritus bottom.

My extensive efforts to use various jigs tipped with minnows in past winters convinced me that a lively minnow on a bare hook consistently outfishes jigs and spoons, at least on this lake… I use an ice rod baited with a 2”-3” shiner minnow teamed up with my LX-3 graph in one hole, and a Strike Sensor equipped tip-up with a large 4”-4 ½" rainbow minnow in a second hole. The holes are often 50 yards or more apart…

This season, I begin fishing this lake the first week of December, always in the evenings at dusk. I had no luck the first few outings, fishing from the edge of the weeds to about 10’ deep. I found my first walleyes of the season at 13’ to 15’ deep, almost all of them on the tip-up with the larger minnow. By the second week of December I was consistently catching larger fish at 17’ to 19’ depths, some on the tip-up and some on the rod with the smaller minnow. During one memorable fast-paced evening I caught 8 walleyes in less than an hour… I returned the 3 largest fish to the water (probably all females), and kept the 5 smaller fish, all of which were over 2 pounds. (no slot limits on these smaller lakes)

Even though my shiner minnows are oversize for crappie, I still manage to catch around 4 crappies during each outing. Throughout December, whenever I set the tip-up with the larger minnows in 23’ or deeper holes, I caught bullheads, or nothing at all. During the past few weeks, I’ve been setting the tip-up in 19’ to 21’ depths, and using smaller 3½ “ rainbow minnows. The minnow is about 6” off the bottom. I’ve caught no walleyes, but have picked up a very few crappies and one northern…

I’ve been catching about 2 walleyes each outing on the rod with the shiner minnows, again a few inches off the bottom. Both the walleyes (12 to 15 inches) and the crappies (5 to 9 inches) are getting smaller…

My conclusions: The walleyes seem to roam around the edges of the bowl, within a narrow depth range. They don’t seem to easily move into either shallower or deeper water depths. Right now I’m into smaller fish… Where have the larger fish moved to?

Any comments appreciated…

[d-marx]

slot limit-1 over 20".....statewide...

[Team Otter]

The larger fish may be more active later in the evening or just prior to sunrise.