Catching walleyes during a mayfly hatch

Who says you can’t catch walleyes during a mayfly hatch. I got to go fishing to check out an old pattern a coworker had discovered years ago and let me say it was something that worked and really well.

Basically it sets up like this: Find a rock shoreline/reef with the hatch going on in the area. Hope that the area has a number of fish surfacing to eat those mayflies or look for an area that does. We are making an assumption that those are some of the bait fish that ‘eyes love to eat. Hold your boat in the 10′ range and cast shallow and bring your baits back. We were bouncing in the shallow rocks with Minnow raps and countdowns. I don’t think that bouncing the rocks is necessary, as we would work parallel to the break and still catch fish provided we did not get over the 10’ mark. I think we caught 20-30 fish in an hour running between 15-16″ on the small side and up to 24″ that second night. I also think I caught a fish on 6 or 7 casts in a row!!! As great a night as I have had fishing for walleyes since I moved here in ’94!!! This first pic is of the second night, all fish were between 18 and 22″.

Mark

Here are some pics from the first night, which wasn’t as good, but the six fish we caught ran between 15-16″ up to 22″ for the night and the hatch wan’t as intense as two nights later when we did mentioned in the previous post.

Mark

Another pic from the first night. We felt pretty good about the fishing. Something that became just an average night on the water once we experienced fishing two nights later. My cohort fished the night in between and couldn’t manage a fish!!!

Mark

Here is just a pretty pic!!!

Mark

Very nice photos…thanks for sharing

I use X raps with good sucess to during a hatch at dusk in similar areas your talking about.

Sound’s like you had a great time. Congrats on a great catch.

Nice going Mark!
Try an ol time Brown Beetle spin…to which I put a copper Colo blade…kills them during the hatch!

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Try an ol time Brown Beetle spin…to which I put a copper Colo blade…kills them during the hatch!

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Those beetle spins are great weed walleye baits too. I replace the tail with a twister tail when I’m throwing those.

dd

I know you’ll probely think I’m nuts but when the mayfly hatch is prime I like to go after shortnose gar w/ a chart shad-rap. fast action and fun. they hit like Northerns and and release the plug very easily

After the rain went through last night, I went another lake similar in size and structure to see if the hatch was going on in that lake or if the ‘eyes were that shallow there as well. The shallow rap bite has always been an enjoyable one and would like to continue to capitalize on it. Didn’t get on the water til 8:30 p.m., but the ‘eyes were there. Might have seen one mayfly, but it was so rough that it was impossible to tell what might have been coming off. Hopefully try it again tonight. No pics, seven released between 15″ and 19″, three on one waypoint. Save that area for next spring spawn jig bite as well.

Mark