Walleye beatdown despite fly hatch remains

We’ve focused on our energies on a pattern actually pinpointing the masses of flies. Typically the opposite of what I would recommend, but over the past month the flies continue to show up. The masses of fly remnants definately do one thing………SCHOOL BIG FISH!! If you can make a well fed walleye bite YOU WILL BE ON BIG BIG NUMBERS!! Again today we duplicated our patterns in a slightly different wash. I would say we landed 50 walleyes exceeding 20 inches in our afternoon trip!! Check out the double Bill and I landed immediately after pinpointing a new school. Amazing the different look between the 2 fish. Bills fish measured 23.5 and mine 22 inches, but no doubt mine was much prettier!!

Impressive as always Chris. It’s simply amazing that 2 fish can be so similar, yet look so different. I don’t want to ask a stupid question, but… Does anybody know what would cause that?

Erik Osberg

I think that is a great question Erik!! Walleyes in Rainy Lake depending on what portion of the lake they come from will look different. Usually I can tell say a fish that comes out of one of the little rivers flowing into Black Bay, or an East end fish……. These fish were side by side obviously inhabiting the same stained water, so my guess would be some different genetics. There are also a select few Blue Walleyes on Rainy Lake. VERY RARE. I’ve got many that seem to be crossed with a blue walleye with a definining blue hue to them in their fins….

I’d love to get a fisheries Biologist answer to that question to see if there are possibly different strains of walleyes, or simply a different genetic make up providing some with a deep yellow/gold, many with the dark black backs, some with the blue colorations, and one like the one Bill is holding in the doubled up action with the grey colors. I typically focus my efforts on the dark yellow/gold fish……