Walleyes With Empty Stomachs

I’ve filleted some walleyes from P4 on three occasions this winter. Typically these fish have been caught after sunset with some of them caught a couple hours after sunset. At times I would describe the bite as good to very good, at least for a short period of time such as 30 minutes or so. However I have not found even one of these walleyes to have anything in its stomach such as a shad. Which make me wonder, if the fish are biting pretty good, are they biting so good because they can’t find shad or other minnows? But the fish are very chunky and thick which makes me think they’re certainly not starving.

Now in the fall, it seems different. The walleyes stomachs will often times just be stuffed with shad or other bait fish.

Has anybody else noticed this? Do you ever catch walleyes in the winter that are full of bait fish? Any theories about why the stomachs are always empty?

What about ice fishing such as on Mille Lacs or Rainy? Do the walleyes there have anything in their stomachs during the winter?

Boone

The simple expinaion for empty stomachs in the winter would be a slowed metabolism. All though all winter long the fish I have cleaned have clearly had shad in thm the seem to beshowing 2 stages of decompostion, which to me seems like they are feeding well. Last week I ran into a ball of shad, literaly, 50 x50 yards wide/long, yet on the other side of the river(100yards away)the fish we caught slammed the baits and were empty in the stomachs. It blows my mind to think that those fish dont know about the huge ball of bait just a few tail flicks away.

Ohh chit did I say I kept fish off pool 4