Yesterday I had a guide trip on Pool 4 of the Mississippi River that I’m still pondering on in the hopes of coming away a little smarter about the habits of my favorite species…. the walleye.
With the incoming cold front I made the assumption that I would need to slow down all presentations if I was going to be successful. I planned to fish more livebait. I rigged up extra rods to be ready to slow troll three ways and livebait. I had rods rigged and ready to go to drag ultra-light jigs tipped with crawlers and leeches. I even added in 4 spinning rods set up with slipsinker livebait rigs just in case we would need to focus in on a small target area and need to fish bait deadstick slow to put fish in the boat.
Our day started at 7 AM. This was a special day because it was the guide trip I donated for the Brandon Rolen Foundation auctions held last month and I really wanted ot show the winners of that auction a great time on the water.
The backwater areas north of Pepin had been giving up good quantities of fish over the last week and I was confident we could get on a nice batch of quality fish in those side channels and cuts, despite the drastic weather change.
We started dragging light jigs tipped with leeches and crawlers along the edge of a current seam in 3′ – 4′ of water in an area that has been loaded with nice walleyes of late. Our start wasn’t so much slow as it was frustrating! The fish were there. They would peck at the baits. But hookups with quality fish were non-existent.
For the better part of an hour we fed the fish. Literally. The guys I fished with were experienced anglers and could tell the difference between a walleye “thunk” and the tap-tap of a sheepshead or little sauger and we were getting bit, but the fish just would NOT do anything more than lip the baits. Several times we had decent fish hooked up only to have them come off after a short fight.
At that point the situation called for a change in tactics.
We pulled the jig dragging gear and opted to try our hand at SLOW trolling 3 ways and livebait into the current in the same areas where the jigs failed to turn nipping fish into boated walleye.
Trolling 3 ways and bait into the current can be the ultimate in precision and control when done correctly. You are able to control forward movement down to a tenth of a mile an hour or you can even hover right over the top of the fish indefinitely if need be. The position of the bait in relationship to the bottom of the river can be manipulated by changing the dropper length to fine tune the presentation and put that offering right on the fishes’ nose and hold it there.
Unfortunately further slowing down our presentation did little to improve our hookup ratio and we continued to feed leeches to unseen fishes at an alarming rate with nothing to show for our efforts beyond a few sub-legal walleyes and a smattering of whitebass and sheepshead.
Since slowing down did nothing for our bite I decided to go in the opposite direction and break out the crankbait rods. One would think that after that nasty cold front rolled through the fish surely wouldn’t hit a crankbait if they were so inactive that they would only nip at a lively leech, right?
WRONG! As in doubles and triples wrong. 
Our first pass with crankbaits, #5 craw pattern shad raps did the most damage, produced simultaneous hookups on a 19″ walleye and another just short of 20″. In an area where we had been fishing livebait with nothing to show for our efforts. A little further along our first pass we stick another legal eye. And then another. And another.
The fish were not deeply hooked, in fact just about every boated fish fell off in the net once we took the pressure off the hooks once the fish hit the bottom of the net bag.
The fish seemed to be nipping at the cranks in much the same way they were nipping at and holding onto our livebait offerings… of course a crankbait, with all those hooks, is a lot harder to drop after the bait is half-heartedly struck than a jig and leech combo. 
So to satisfy my curious mind we had to go back through this same area with livebait just to see if the fish “turned on” and would strike anything put in front of them now or if they were still acting like little bait stealing perch.
Two more passes through the area with livebait and we had 1 small whitebass and a little sheepshead to show for our time.
On a coldfront day with 25+ mph winds I couldn’t buy a walleye on a leech or crawler. We ended up boxing 13 legal walleyes and saugers caught on cranks on a day when I spent WAY too much time trying to slow down and carefully work known fish holding areas when the fish were telling me from the first pass of the day… no bait today!
I love walleye fishing. Yesterday was a day that will stick in my head as a day where I tried to out think the fish and only managed to out think myself. Hopefully I’ll be a smarter angler for it down the road.
