Unlocking the Fall Walleye Puzzle
I love fishing reservoirs and natural lakes in the fall time. They can certainly be challenging but when you unlock the puzzle it seems so worthwhile. On an early fall trip to Lake of the Prairies, local anglers told me you should have been here last week. It seems that the fishing had slowed considerably as we moved into colder temperatures. Arriving late afternoon, we launched the boat and headed out to a couple nearby points and shorelines. After four hours we had scratched together enough fish for supper, but the action could hardly be classified as hot and heavy.
FIGURE OUT THE PATTERN
On Day Two we had a full day to explore and figure out a consistent pattern. By using my LakeMaster Map, we checked out a wide variety of structure on the south end of this large reservoir. While marking fish, we had a tough day on the catching front. We managed to get into double digits, but it was a slow day for this body of water.
CHANGE IT UP TO YOU FIND WHAT WORKS
We tried a variety of techniques, including bottom bouncers and spinners, crankbaits, reaction baits and jigs tipped with salted shiners or nightcrawlers. We caught one or two fish on each method, but no concrete pattern emerged. I did spend a lot of time searching and making notes of what areas were holding the most fish. I did have confidence that eventually the fish would have to get a bit more aggressive.
On Day Three after trying a sand flat that had scattered fish, I decided to change tactics. I went looking for saddle areas between shallow shoreline humps. The depth between these saddles was in the 24-foot range. I started marking a lot of fish and by putting down a waypoint I decided to Spotlock with my MinnKota Terrova right on the fish.
BINGO
We soon were into fish, pretty much nonstop action for both jumbo perch and walleye. In fact, we landed several perch over 12 inches. We fished the whole morning on this one spot as fish kept moving through the saddle feeding aggressively. We also caught our biggest walleye of the trip here as well. Almost all were caught on a Ned jig rigged with a salted shiner.
After a quick lunch I headed up the reservoir to a shoreline point on which I had marked a bunch of fish on the previous day.
SPOTLOCK WORKS AGAIN
As I scanned the point with my Helix 10, there was one small section that was holding most of the fish. Putting down the front troll motor I hit the anchor mode. Three hours later we had put a wide variety of fish in the boat including a Master Angler rock bass.
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
Lake of the Prairies is a body of water that gets large algae blooms. These limit light penetration and will kill off most of the weed beds in the reservoir. This dead vegetation no longer provides food or cover the baitfish. This forces them to scatter and find shoreline points, humps, and saddles to hang out. These were all areas that were holding most of the fish on our fall trip.
IN SUMMARY
Fall walleye in lakes and reservoirs tend to school tightly together. These fish, in most cases, are aggressive. One of the keys though, is to stay right on them when they are congregated in a small area. I really like to spotlock on these fish and vertical jig them. Early in our trip we had to use bait to get extra bites but by the end plastic like Berkley Ripple Shads were working just fine.
Now until freeze up is a great time to catch some of the biggest fish of the year. Enjoy!