Door County And Green Bay Walleye Fishing

Summer time is definitely here with the past couple of months bringing much warmer weather than we have seen for the past couple of seasons and this has really helped warm the water temperatures into the mid to high 70 degree range which has helped heat up the Walleye fishing here on Green Bay. I have been fishing for walleyes in several different locations around the Bay of Green Bay from the southern end of Green Bay all the way north around the islands and reefs here in Door County. I have been doing some casting for the walleyes but most of our fishing has consisted of trolling and depending on where we have been fishing our presentation has been a bit different I will explain.

The southern end of Green Bay is pretty featureless not having a lot of structure with an exception to some smaller reefs not to far off of shore but for the most part the mid basin areas are structure free with expansive mud flats that stretch for many miles. Summer time walleyes in this portion of Green Bay tend to use these mud flats roaming these areas relating to schools of bait fish and locating these bait fish is key to locating the larger schools of walleyes feeding on them. The water clarity down here has a bit of a stain to it so I find that choosing brighter colors with my crankbaits or blades for my crawler harnesses has much better success. These walleyes tend to suspend in the water column here so experimenting with different depths is key in finding that exact right depth.

I have been finding very good success trolling crawler harnesses with inline weights behind Off Shore Planer Boards to get to my desired depth along with some days catching good numbers of walleyes trolling #7 Storm Smash Shads. Here is a tip that works very well for me and is often over looked by Many people trolling out here. Keeping an eye on your locator is very important in locating both bait fish along with walleyes and determining what depth you are seeing them but often there are walleyes that are much higher in the water column that you are not seeing and they are spooking away from the boat as it approaches them and you will not mark these fish so I often run baits up higher than what I am marking fish to intercept these fish that are much higher in the water column and not being seen on your locator.

As we get up in the northern section of the Bay of Green Bay in Door County here we have much clearer water with much better visibility so here is where I will fish with more natural colors or baits that have more flash to them being that sunlight can penetrate much deeper here than in the southern Bay. I have been trolling both crawler Harnesses along with trolling #12 Rapala Husky Jerks finding that on days with more wind the Rapala Husky Jerks have been much more successful. While trolling crawler harnesses can be very effective they are very speed dependent so on days that are very windy it is much easier and more effective to troll your crankbaits. With the Fall season soon approaching there is still time to take advantage of some great summer walleye fishing. Good luck and as always be safe and kind to others.

Paul Delaney

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