Walleyes and multi-species- Otter Tail area

This spring has been one odd season so far. I’ve found myself not fishing as much as I would like, working too much, but I finally got out with my good friend for a local tournament this past weekend on West Battle Lake.

I had been out roaming the waters for short spurts and I could certainly crack the sunfish, bass, northerns and rock bass. The walleyes have been hiding, and one look at our weather I know why….cold fronts, and wind have plagued us for what seems like eternity.

While pre-fishing we were greeted with rain, some wind out of the north/NE/east in the couple days on the water. Even the sun peeked out for a few hours and the wind died, and so did the action. We continued to struggle with the walleyes, so it was search time.

I did something I usually don’t do in frontal conditions, and tie on a spinner and leech and start rolling at a rapid speed. Within a few minutes I hooked up with a nice fish, and the game was on. This tactic was going and the action was good until the sun came out and the lake was glass. Then, it was like a light switch…no bass, sunfish and rock bass. Nothing.

Tournament day came and it really felt like we were going pre-fishing another day after trying various tactics to boat a fish for part of our morning. After roaming over a deep weed flat in 20′ we found a school of fish with the help of a leech rig rolled slowly over the top of the weeds. We locked on top of this spot and managed to boat three fish, but only one was a keeper at 17″. Then our bite died.

We rolled around and hit some trusty spots, and all we did was feed the bass. Holy cow, the bass chowed our minnow supplies up quickly! Those bass (and nice ones at that) are thick in the cabbage, and deep on other weed flats in upwards of 25′ of water.

It was finally time to roll back to our original spot, park on it and hope for the best.

We arrived to locate lots of fish hugging the bottom weeds with the help of my Marcum LX-5 on the bow next to my graph. I could clearly see these fish on the flasher, but the funny thing was we weren’t being bothered by the rock bass, perch and bass. I’ve noticed that’s a good thing sometimes, like the walleye predators moved in. Luckily, the winds died down (and it was raining quite well all afternoon) and I could hover the boat directly over these fish as I worked a slight dip in the bottom structure.

Over the course of the next hour we managed another fish over the 15″ mark, lost countless bites, broken lines…frustrating. Finally I connected on a 6.10 lb eye that gave a great fight and adrenaline rush for the long day before we had to pack up and leave.

Popular tactics used were primarily leech rigs and jigs/minnows fished as slowly as you can to keep the boat over these fish. The bites were so subtle that we didn’t know if our lures were snagged on a weed or a walleye was just taking a taste.

Besides the walleyes, we found monster sunfish in some weed flats in the 15-17′ range, big bass in the cabbage and some big slab crappies roaming another weed flat in the 20′ range. The weather has some fish deep and aggressive, while my favorite target, the walleye, seems to have a case of lock jaw at times.

Good luck.