Have you ever stumbled on a fish bite that is so weird that you can’t begin to explain why or how it happened? Late into the gamefish season one Minnesota winter, my brother and I found ourselves in the midst of one such bite. We were catching large, midwinter walleyes in 4-7 feet of water on a weed flat in the middle of the night. Thinking it a fluke, we ignored the rationale behind it and didn’t try to replicate it again until the next ice season. We have now come to understand how this bite works and how to find the same pattern on different lakes.
It all started while trying a lake near our house that we fished often in the summer but had yet to check out on the hard water. We had just received a fresh blanket of about 8 inches of snow and were supposed to get a couple additional inches that night. We both had prior obligations so we couldn’t make it out to the lake until about 11pm. At the time I had an old cabin style portable that liked to nose dive down into the snow which made pulling it a chore. We made it only about 50 yards off the launch before we decided to just drill a hole and see where we were. That spot was only about 5 feet deep, but we decided to give it a try anyways. The first fish we marked came in about 1 foot over the top of the weeds. My brother was just getting a fathead on a Genz bug down when the fish shot up to it and smacked it. Less than five minutes of fishing and we were already on the board with a fat 18” walleye. We made several small moves that night staying within the same area and as long as we stayed quiet and stayed on this shallow flat in 4-7 feet of water we were able to catch big cruising walleyes. By the end of the night, or I should say early morning because we didn’t leave the lake until 3 am, we had caught around 20 walleyes in the 16-27” range.
Putting It All Together
While the bite on this specific metro lake isn’t always as fast and furious as it was that night, we can generally put together some very respectable fish. After some studying of the lake map and looking around with the underwater camera we found out the area we fished that night is a large weed flat directly adjacent to the deepest part of the lake. We took this information and tried to apply it to other similar lakes in the area and were able to reproduce this type of success on some of them. But there seemed to be a piece of the puzzle that we hadn’t quite figured out. Looking at the species and forage type of many of these metro lakes, we were able to figure out that missing piece of the puzzle.
Although walleyes will generally target forage such as shiners and young perch, in many smaller, shallow lakes there is a shortage of such prey. The fish still needing to feed, will then target any easily accessible prey, which in many shallow weedy lakes amount to thousands of 2-4” bluegills. The walleye move out of the deep water they sit in during the day and cruise the shallows picking off bluegills with their sight advantage. It has been shown that stocked walleyes are predisposed to living in weeds more often than naturally reproduced walleyes, some spending up to 70% of their lives in the weeds! None of these walleyes in the shallows are timid feeders either, there were times when we could even hear our Thill bobbers going down.
One thing we have noticed is that not all parts of these weed flats will have fish roaming them. In fact a large portion of these flats will not hold fish at all. These fish are cruisers, but that does not mean they will move indiscriminately. They are looking for food, so they will spend the majority of their time in areas where their prey (mostly young bluegills) will be. Changes in weed types, random rocks, sunken timber, even the edges of weeds around public beaches make great ambush points for these predators. One of my best spots is a transition from coontail to to sand at the edge of a public beach. When fishing this spot I will drill a line of holes zig-zagging back and forth across this line and place tip-ups or dead sticks along the edge. An underwater camera like the Marcum VS820 can pay huge dividends when prescouting these spots, allowing you to find the best isolated structure on large flats.
Timing
While the bite on all the lakes where we were able to pattern the fish in this way always seemed to take place between the hours of 11pm and 3am, there was somewhat of a time difference depending on the clarity of the lake. The fish in clear lakes often didn’t move into the shallow feeding areas until midnight or sometimes even later, while fish on stained water lakes would start as early as 9 or 10pm. We also found that lakes with a lot of motor vehicle traffic, whether it is ATV, snowmobile or car/truck would not have as pronounced of a shallow water walleye bite; or if there was a decent shallow bite on heavily trafficked lakes it took place well away from the major travel areas. Even one snowmobile or truck moving through the area we were fishing would often cause the fish to scatter for up to an hour or two. So by taking a map of the lake and coloring in the major travel areas it was easy to find which areas to key on in beginning our search. Human traffic also had an effect on the timing of the bite. Lakes that have the rush hour crowd (those hitting their shacks at 5pm until 9 or 10pm) would have a later bite than lakes that seldom see much for vehicle traffic. Some lakes that saw little or no traffic would have walleyes in the shallows during all hours of the day.
Another environmental factor that seems to have a huge impact on the bite is the moon phase. The best times we have found to out for big walleyes on shallow weed flats is 3 days before and after both a full moon and a new moon. Though most anglers know about the moon phase’s effect on the way fish bite, few know that it also will effect fish behavior in the winter as well.
Equipment
The first time we accidentally found these fish we were ill prepared for the bruising these big, aggressive walleyes put on our equipment. Planning to go after panfish, we had rods with little backbone and our reels were only rigged with 4lb mono, which made fighting these pigs an adventure. Luckily we had good reels, and our drags worked well. But by using underpowered equipment we did put an unnecessary strain on the larger fish we were planning to release. On future trips we went prepared for the larger fish. This meant using heavier glass rods like the Thorne Bros Walleye Sweetheart which stands up to the bigger walleyes you will hook into than my little panfish rods. A glass rod is very nice for fighting fish in such shallow water because they have a slower action. Shimano reels are always my first choice for walleyes through the ice, and I will spool them up with either 6 or 8 lb Trilene Micro Ice.
Even though these fish will hit baits with seemingly reckless abandon, they will drop the bait if they feel too much resistance, which is one of the reasons tip-ups won’t work very well for this presentation. Often we will set up a circle hook with just a small split shot below a Thill pencil float for these fish. The trick to rigging up a Thill for ice fishing is to wind a small swivel into the spring at the base of the bobber. This allows the area where the line passes through the bobber to sit under the water and prevents freeze up. Circle hooks are a huge necessity for this type of fishing as many of these fish are too large to keep and when live bait fishing it helps to prevent injury to the fish. Anglers who have never used a circle hook before will find it to be slightly different from fishing with a standard aberdeen or octopus hook. For one, the design of the circle hook mean that you can let the fish take the bait for a long time before setting the hook without worry of gut hooking a fish. The hook will catch the corner of the lip of the fish almost every time, but an angler shouldn’t set the hook, rather just pick up the rod and begin to reel in the fish. I will often use circle hooks in sizes 6 or 8, but if you prefer larger bait you can go as large as a 2 or 4. I like to use small sucker minnows as they are a lot more durable, but shiners will work when you can find them as will large fatheads. One of the most important things to remember on this bite is that the larger fish should go back, as they are pivotal to the future reproduction in the lake.
Since these fish are a bit of roamers we will set several rods up around key structure that we have found on prior scouting expeditions. We will often set the rod in a holder and leave the bail open and just walk around from time to time checking on the bobber. Even though I am not sure if it makes a difference or not, I like to use the red light setting on my head lamp so as not to spook any fish in the shallows. If you come to a hole where the bobber has disappeared, simply take the rod out of the holder and begin reeling. Another way to fish this method on very cold days is a system that has become popular on lakes like Mille Lacs in central Mn. Anglers construct boxes out of different materials and then put a single candle inside the box to keep the hole ice free. The boxes have a small window that allows the angler to see the spool that sits inside the box. This spool has markings on it which the angler sets at a certain point and can tell if a fish has bitten by seeing if the spool has moved. Using these boxes comes in very helpful on some of those January nights when the temps can dip into the -10 to -30 degree range.
This is one of the most consistent ways I have ever found to target big walleyes in the winter. Not only were we able to find large walleyes on a regular basis, we were finding them on heavily pressured metro lakes. We are still working in finding where these fish hang out during the day, but every night they can be found roaming the shallows searching for small bluegills. Just remember to put the pieces of the puzzle together. You need shallows weed flats, a stunted bluegill population, and quiet. Give it a try this winter, you will be surprised! But please remember to release the larger fish as they are the future of our lakes.
