Seasonal locations

Hey guys,

Thru my time in learning the aspects locating walleyes, or fish in general, throughout the seasons, I seem to find a pattern. I may be way off with this, but looking for others perspective. Or, I may be way behind from not realizing this sooner, idk.

As we go thru the seasons, where fish move shallow to spawn in the spring, then deeper in the summer. Is it correct to think that they do the same in fall and winter? Move shallower to feed before ice up and then deeper as the winter ice season progresses? Meaning that its basically a cycle of shallow to deep between the 4 seasons.

With that said, are spots that were good in spring, likely to be good in fall too? Same goes for spots good in summer, good in winter ice season? I know nothing is mechanical in the fishing world, other than a reel. This is more of a way of looking at the seasons and breaking down seasonal locations.

I feel like there are always fish shallow, all year round. And weeds play a larger factor from spring to fall than depth, but your good spots are good for a reason. Usually that reason is something structurally funnels fish through that location and that doesn’t change by season unless it gets choked out by weeds. Winter/spring is kind of the x factor as one major variable (weeds) plays little to no factor. But that’s just like, my opinion mannnn.

I agree with both you. There are seasonal patterns and year round patterns. I fish lakes and rivers where there are spots that hold fish year round. Those some bodies of water might have a seasonal pattern too.

One lake I fish has a seasonal pattern related to a piece of structure. Fish only get on this structure at a certain water temp during spring and fall. You will not catch fish during summer and winter on this spot. One year round pattern are suspended crappies. You can find them year round on this lake suspended over deep water.

It’s very specific to bodies of water imho. Kyle, I think you are mentioning traditional patterns which can absolutely be true. Werm’s patterns might be considered a little untraditional for a lot of walleye guys but there are absolutely lake where walleyes are always shallow and in the weeds.

I’m a river guy so i know how to talk in that manner best.

I think from what i’ve seen and from what the telemetry reports here and there tell me, there are similarities to spring/summer when comparing fall/winter.

The key difference for me is not all fish move to the spawning grounds in the fall. a good number of them do but not all. Another thing is that in the summer, i think fish feed in the shallow (because thats where the bait is in the summer) and rest in the deep. Whereas in the winter, i think they feed deeper most of the time because balls of shad/bait will go deep AND you get a lot of dying shad flowing down the river. I think they’ll come shallow occasionally but only briefly and only in the low light.