Pool 4 Spawning Walleye’s 4/5/08

Well another weekend has come and gone, but not without some good times shared, stories told, and some big fish caught. I took a three day weekend this past weekend to share the water with friends and family. I spent last friday with IDAer walleyedds (Tom), Saturday was spent with my grandpa and one of his buddies, and Sunday was spent with a long time friend and fishing buddy Jim B. Thank you all for sharing my boat with me, it was a pleasure fishing with you all.

This past weekend brought much of the same as the prior weekend with a few little changes that proved to make a big difference in our success rate. A few changes in regaurds to location, position of fish, and lure colors seemed to be the most important.

The locations these fish have been holding has since changed due to the fish going from pre-spawn staging areas to spawning areas. At least half of the females that were caught we were able to push a little spawn out of them. With the fish being in the spawning period it has moved them to shallow areas that are filled with sand or gravel and that have deeper water nearby. Find an area that is shallow, has sand and/or gravel bottom, and that is out of the current and you should find yourself some walleyes.

The position of the walleyes in those locations has also slightly changed due to a few things. One being the amount of boat traffic and fishing pressure, and the other also due to them starting to spawn. With those two things in mind the fish have been holding on the break line of deeper water and moving into the shallows to either feed or to spawn. Position yourself so you are able to fish both the breakline and the shallow area. By doing so you will be able to reach them whether they are just holding on the breakline or when they move up to the shallows.

With the water getting a SLIGHT tint in it I have seen the color preference change slightly. Our best colors for the weekend would have to be the Gold B3 blade bait, and firecracker chart. tail ringworm on a black precision head. Blades seemed to be a bit preffered over the ringworms this past weekend for my boat but I wouldn’t leave home without both of them.

I would look for most of this week to be good to great fishing as the fish are getting ready to spawn and are quite vulnerable due to low water at this time. If there is any possible way that you can get out there I would go for it, as I dont think you would be dissapointed.

It was nice to see a lot of IDA’ers out there this past weekend. I hope everyone had a good weekend.
ALL fish pictured were released to be caught again another day.

Until next time………….