Daytime fishing for walleyes during the warm summer months often means live bait rigging near deep water structure, extracting fish from well-developed weed beds, or targeting suspended fish with cranks or spinners. As the sun dips towards the horizon, however, the shallow water areas that were devoid of walleyes during midday once again come alive with marble-eyed predators. Walleyes are drawn shallow under the cover of darkness because of the abundant food sources present along shorelines, particularly panfish and small perch. In this article, I will describe my primary presentation for these summer night shift walleyes, and how you can apply this presentation to your particular body of water.
Before I talk fishing, let me provide a bit of context. One lake that occupies my attention during the summer is a ~ 1600 acre “up north” lake with a 12 foot Secchi disk measurement….a very clear body of water. This lake features abundant shallow weedbeds extending to 12-15 feet, composed primarily of cabbage and coontail. Classic deep water structure in the form of humps, gravel beds or reefs, however, is essentially absent. Our daytime walleye fishing on this lake typically takes the form of pitching bait (leeches and crawler halves) to the weed edges on Draggin’ Jigs from B-Fish-N tackle. The short plastic hookguard on these jigs, designed to deflect wood and rocks in a river environment, does an excellent job of allowing the baited jig to slither along the weed edges, seducing walleye and largemouth bass from their weedy residences. After dinner, however, the jig poles find their way back into the rod locker, in favor of crankbait rods for our dusk and after-dark work.
Crankbaits fished under the cover of darkness will likely come as no surprise to you. A classic fall pattern for big walleyes is to longline troll stickbaits over shallow rock and weeds. Post-spawn male walleyes are typically susceptible to trolled cranks in the shallows as the inland seasons open in Minnesota and Wisconsin. My after-dark crankbait fishing during the warm summer months typically relies on casting, however, rather than trolling. In my experience, these summer fish do not tend to scatter over wide areas in the shallows. Rather, they focus their feeding efforts on a small number of key locations, and casting cranks to these areas is more efficient than trolling through them. Trolling would also miss the large numbers of fish that are found within a foot or two of shore…and I do mean LARGE numbers of fish. Later in this article, I’ll talk about one of the technological tools that helps me identify these prime shallow water feeding locations, making me a more efficient and successful walleye angler.
I start my hunt for warm water nighttime walleyes by looking for areas that feature 50-100 feet of relatively weed-free water between shore and the offshore weedbeds. I’m targeting areas with a distinct inner weed edge, rather than shorelines where the thick weeds start a few feet offshore and continue to the shoreline dropoff. Typically, my target areas feature hard bottoms of sand or gravel, rather than muck that would support lily pads or similar shallow water vegetation. Typical depths in these target areas are only 3-4 feet at the inner weed edge. My target areas also feature a relatively sharp shoreline “lip” rather than a gradual change in depth, like you might find at a sandy beach. The lip helps walleyes to corral baitfish against an obstruction, which likely explains the large numbers of walleyes that we catch within 5 feet of shore.
The characteristics noted above eliminate a considerable percentage of the shoreline in my 1600 acre lake. However, it would still take me many seasons of trial and error to find the key feeding locations within these target areas. The tool that helps me focus my efforts on the key walleye-attracting areas is my Humminbird Side Imaging sonar…allow me to explain how. Our years of past experience had taught us that we could reliably catch walleyes after dark in a limited number of spots, and that these walleyes were often concentrated in very small areas…perhaps the size of a boat. From the surface, these areas appear no different from other stretches of water within the same target areas. However, Humminbird’s Side Imaging technology demonstrated that there was something very different about EVERY SINGLE ONE of these walleye-attracting, “spots-on-the-spot”: wood. We found sunken logs in each of the spots that reliably produced walleyes for us after dark. If we continued fishing down the shoreline within the same target areas, the absence of sunken wood translated perfectly into an absence of catchable walleyes. Knowing that sunken wood along a particular type of shoreline was a key walleye attractant, we spent a few days scanning ALL of the shorelines, looking for a combination of appropriate depth, a distinct inner weed edge, and sunken wood. Now, we have a milk runoff 5-6 key “spots-on-the-spot” that we can hit after dark, providing consistent summertime walleye action for us in the absence of the blazing sun, water skiers, personal watercraft, and 95% of summer anglers. Sunken wood may not be the key for you on your body of water. Perhaps it will be an isolated patch of weeds or a rockpile along an otherwise featureless shoreline. Maybe it will be a small secondary depth transition between the shore and the inner weed edge. Whatever that walleye-attracting factor turns out to be, it will be something distinctly different than the surrounding structure, and Humminbird’s Side Imaging technology will help you find it.
Now that I have my spots identified, it’s time to fish. My favorite tackle combination for this style of fishing is my St. Croix Legend Xtreme 69MLF rod, paired with a Pflueger Supreme reel, spooled with 8 lb test Fireline Crystal. This combination lets me fire cranks towards the shore from considerable distances, preventing me from spooking these shallow water fish. The medium-light St. Croix rod is extremely sensitive, yet very forgiving with a big fish boatside. I use a cross-lock snap to connect the line to my crankbait of choice. With our lake’s shallow water panfish forage base, I tend to favor Rapala Shallow Shad Raps in the #5 (early summer) and #7 (mid-summer) sizes, although we have also enjoyed success with Rapala Team Esko cranks. A long cast followed by a steady, moderate-paced retrieve is typically all that is required to elicit strikes from these feeding, shallow-water walleyes. We try to place our casts within a couple feet of the shore, and fish the baits all the way back to the boat. Many strikes occur within the first couple of reel cranks, demonstrating that feeding fish can be found chasing bait tight to the shoreline. I will vary my retrieve speed, not within a single cast, but over a series of multiple casts to see if the walleyes are more responsive to a slow retrieve or to a more aggressive one. Keep your rod tip parallel to the water, and set hooks with a firm, sweeping hookset to move hooked fish rapidly away from any remaining fish that are still on the feed.
Before you hit the water on a summer evening, ensure that you are prepared for your nighttime angling experience. I stow all of the extra gear (rods, tackle boxes, etc) that I know I won’t use that evening. I make sure that my navigation lights are in working order, and that PFDs are available for and worn by all of my guests. Headlamps and flashlights are must-have items for nighttime angling…and don’t forget a camera with a good flash! Make sure that the net and unhooking tools are accessible too, as you’ll likely need them. Drive to and from your spots slowly and with care. Finally, when you release fish in the warm shallow waters of summer, please spend the time necessary to ensure a successful release. Larger fish in particular will need some time boatside with your support before they can swim away on their own. Summertime walleye fishing after dark is a GREAT way to cap a warm summer day. You will likely enjoy some multi-species action as a bonus, with largemouth and smallmouth bass, musky, and pike also being available in the shallows once the sun goes down. So get out there and enjoy…and let us know how you did!
Additional Resources
For more information about the Draggin’ Jig from B-Fish-N tackle, check out this link.
To test drive a St. Croix Legend Xtreme/Pflueger combo, check out the "Fish before yoy buy" program run by Dean Marshall at Everts Resort.
For more information on Humminbird’s industry-leading Side Imaging technology, check out this link.
To have a Humminbird Side Imaging system installed in your boat, check out the specials offered by Skeeter Boat Center.
For a great guided walleye trip this summer, check out Jason Halfen Outdoors.
