Winter Current Walleye Fishing

By Nick Simonson My prediction from last month – that winter would eventually get colder – was way off; so much for making the safe bet. The ice in most areas hasn’t grown much, and with unprecedented January temperatures crossing the 50- and 60-degree barriers across the upper Midwest in recent days, it has receded [...]

Fresh Live Bait

by Bob Jensen Fish in the summertime can be a finicky bunch. Some days they want a crankbait moved quickly halfway between the surface and the bottom, other days they want a jig tipped with soft bait bounced aggressively right on the bottom. And then there are the days when they want something worked very [...]

Fishing Mudlines

By Jason Mitchell Wind and chop on the water often makes or breaks walleye fishing success. As wind directions and velocities change through the course of a day, adapting to the opportunities created by wind requires some flexibility. Mid summer often finds extended periods of stable weather with varying wind. One of the top patterns [...]

Fishing Walleyes on Flats

By Jason Mitchell If there is one spot, one pattern that is capable of producing a lot of walleyes for us each season early in the summer, my vote would go to large shallow flats that protrude to deep water.  Shallow is relative along with deep but what we are looking for are flats that [...]

Early Season Fishing Success

By Bob Jensen More and more, anglers are getting on and in the water. Some folks are fishing from boats, some are wading, and some are fishing from docks or shore. Some anglers are catching fish, some aren’t catching too much. If you want to catch more fish early in the fishing season, following are [...]

Long Lines for Spring Walleye

By Jason Mitchell Over the years, an incredibly effective tactic for us is to long line a light jig or split shot rig through shallow water.  In states where we could use two rods in particular, we often used the long line rig on the extra rod in the rod holder.  There are probably several [...]

Early River Walleyes

By Bob Jensen Across the Midwest, March and April mean one thing to most walleye anglers: Rivers! In some states, walleye season doesn’t open until early to mid-May. If you want to go fishing for walleyes, you need to go to a border river where walleye season is continuous. In other regions, the lakes are [...]

Shallow Water Fishing

By Jason Mitchell The fact that shallow water fishing is productive during the early part of the open water season is no secret.  This general pattern is fairly universal with both warm water and cool water fish that spawn in the spring.  Whether the targeted species is bass, walleyes, northern pike or even pan fish, [...]

Spring Walleyes

By Jason Mitchell So often when targeting big walleyes early in the season, less is more.  The most productive techniques are often simple and subtle.  On natural lakes in particular, we often find fish shallow, relating to the shoreline.  Good locations might include protected shallow bays or shallow gravel and sand flats that warm up [...]

Understanding Walleyes

Things to Think about while Wishing for Walleyes Surefire walleye techniques that’ll be served hot in my boat this spring and summer. By Brian “Bro” Brosdahl It’s early in the season. The labor of spawning is a fling of the past – the breeders are well rested. Water temps are in that magical range – [...]

Horizontal Jigging

By Nick Simonson Have you ever watched the way minnows move? When I was in Grand Forks, N.D. attending “The School that Shall Not Be Named” I had multiple chances to jump the Red River into East Grand Forks, Minn., and watch as trout, bass and pike preyed upon minnows that the staff had dumped [...]

Bobber Fishing Tips for the Spring

The Ultimate Live Bait Rigging Solution? By Tony Roach with Doc Samson In the “Roach world” pretty much everything revolves around convincing walleyes and other fish to bite. Even when I’m not in the boat doing what I need to do to make that happen, I just can’t stop my mind from swimming around different [...]

Shallow Walleye Fishing Tips

By Jason Mitchell If the weather is stable, walleyes can often be found in shallow water during spring and early summer… shallow being less than ten feet. Obviously, every fishery is different, not to mention a multitude of factors like forage or weather can relocate fish. During May and June however on many bodies of [...]

Walleyes and Water Temps

By Jason Mitchell Factors like water temperature and wind seem increasingly important during spring. Often, the most important piece of equipment is a temperature gauge as activity often revolves around water temperature. A temperature gauge also enables an angler to gauge the influence of wind. Water temperature is relative in the sense that there is [...]

Fishing Diary

By Nick Simonson There have been a lot of changes in my life over the past five years. I’ve lived in two states and three towns and have had six different jobs, with this one being the most consistent. In that time I’ve fished over 60 lakes and rivers, gaining some level of familiarity with [...]

Catch and Release Fishing

‘Swimming Pools’ for Fish A Little Advice on Caring for Your Catch By Tony Roach Have you ever caught the same fish twice in a single day? How about the same fish two or three times inside a week? I’ll bet many of you have. Even on a massive fish factory like Mille Lacs in [...]

Building Fish Habitat

By Doug Leier More than 40 years ago the North Dakota Game and Fish Department, in an effort to create structure for fish and create artificial habitat within Heart Butte Dam (Lake Tschida) in Grant County, sunk some old car bodies into the reservoir. As you might expect, the practice of using car bodies for [...]

Live Bait Rig Fishing

Walleye fishing icons Gary Roach and Doc Samson won’t be giving up live bait anytime soon By Ted Pilgrim Livebait is back, baby. You better believe it. Despite the buzz about plastics, the reality is, walleyes eat live bait. Period. In the end, all artificial lures lack two potent, inimitable ingredients: organic random movement and [...]

Raising Nightcrawlers off the Bottom

‘Nightcrawler Secrets’ Revisited By Ted Pilgrim with Tom Neustrom “Never before have I asked you, or anyone, to keep an angling secret. I’m going to break this rule now and ask you point-blank NOT to pass on this information. It is much too deadly, it took many years to accumulate, and it’s worth too much [...]

Learning Crawler Rigs and Roach Rigs on Walleyes

Please Pass the Meat…the Fresh Stuff Walleye fishing icons Gary Roach and Doc Samson won’t be giving up live bait anytime soon By Ted Pilgrim Livebait is back, baby. You better believe it. Despite the buzz about plastics, the reality is, walleyes eat live bait. Period. In the end, all artificial lures lack two potent, [...]

Walleyes and the Wind

By Jason Mitchell The affect of wind on walleye is almost cliché.  Follow the wind or fish the windy shore.  Wind stacks up baitfish and then the walleye follow.  The reality is however that this cliché is only right half the time so this theory is just another half truth.  There are so many scenarios [...]

Trolling the Night Bite for Walleyes

By PJ Maguire   There are a lot of theories in walleye circles about when the peak feeding time is for walleyes throughout the year. It’s well documented that walleyes with their cloudy, marble eyes were designed to prey on baitfish in low-light conditions. So with that being said you’d expect the peak to often [...]

Walleye Trolling Concepts

By Jason Mitchell Regardless of whether you look for walleye in a river, lake or reservoir, trolling crank baits are incredibly effective come mid to late summer.  The reasons that trolling can be so effective stem from the fact that fish will generally pull out into areas that are easy to troll.  When fish suspend [...]

Trolling for Walleyes

By Chris Hustad This is a 2-part series on a beginners guide to trolling for walleyes. Also see the 2nd part of the series – Walleye Trolling Boards and Trolling Deep My newest passion in walleye fishing the past couple years has been trolling. I will admit it, I flat out love trolling for walleyes. [...]

Walleye Trolling Boards & Trolling Deep for Walleyes

By Chris Hustad This is a second part of a 2-part series on a beginners guide to trolling for walleyes. Also see the 1st part of the series – Trolling for Walleyes I  am a big fan of planer boards for walleyes, but it wasn’t always this way. My first time using planer boards was [...]

Fishing Leadcore

By Jason Mitchell Over the past ten years, trolling with lead core line has gained in popularity amongst the walleye crowd. Lead core enables anglers to put any crankbait in the tackle box in front of fish regardless of how deep. This in itself is a huge advantage but you can also accomplish the same [...]

Suspended Walleyes & Slip Bobbers

By Jason Mitchell Walleye suspend an awful lot, much more I bet than most anglers want to imagine. I say, “want to imagine,” because many anglers do in fact hate the idea of fishing in “no man’s land.” That is off the bottom. The bottom is such a nice constant, something so definite. When we [...]

Walleye River Fishing Tips

By Bill Ortiz With all of the tools available now to the modern walleye angler, one of the oldest and most effective tools for catching walleye on rivers early in the year continues to be a good anchor. What surprises me is how many fishing rigs don’t even have anchors or at least anchors that [...]

Fine Tuning Your Boat Control

By Sheldon Meidinger Easily keeping the boat on a small spot for most of the day can help anglers catch just about any kind of fish from bass and sunfish to musky and walleye. The greatest evolution on boat control however, has been in walleye fishing applications. From reservoirs and natural lakes to rivers and [...]

River Walleyes on Plastics

By Troy Morris Plastics have really made an impact on river walleye fishing. Plastics allow anglers to change shapes, colors and size with an ease that cannot be accomplished with the traditional minnow or shiner. Jigs tipped with a plastic body often shine in river fishing conditions for a variety of reasons. First off, the [...]

It’s About the Little Things

Our Outdoors Nick Simonson   It’s the little things in life that matter; a couple bluegills on the flyrod to pass a sunny afternoon at the lake or a few golden walleye fillets sizzling in the frying pan for an evening meal. And it is these little things that make angling so much fun. Getting [...]

Walleyes – You Gotta Love ‘Em

By Chris Hustad Versatility – that’s what makes walleye fishing so unique. Over the course of the open water season in the upper Midwest, I will typically fish for walleyes, pike, musky, smallmouth & largemouth bass, catfish, crappies, and a whole assortment of other species by accident. When I think about fishing for panfish, smallies [...]

Spring River Walleye Fishing

Our Outdoors Nick Simonson Spring in the upper Midwest is unpredictable; seventy-two and sunny one weekend, twenty-seven and snowing the next. However, there is one thing about spring that is a given; fish will go through the same process in preparation to beget more fish. It is during this time of year – the prespawn [...]

Spinner Rigs

By Ted Takasaki and Scott Richardson   You can’t beat live bait…or can you? There is a presentation that combines both the natural scent, look and feel of live bait and the flash and attraction of a lure. Spinner rigs offer the best of both worlds and they work especially well on many different lakes [...]

Walleyes in the Weeds

By PJ Maguire   The lake that I fish the most is not what you would classify as a “traditional” walleye lake. The lake does not contain any mud flats or rocky points. It is a weedy lake, and the walleyes are weed walleyes. I have found that cabbage flats that are ten to fourteen [...]

Weight Forward Spinners

By Lindy Fishing Tackle The dramatic comeback of Lake Erie walleye fishing has brought widespread attention to a lure that’s been around for a long time, the weight forward spinner. The weight forward spinner is basically a chunk of lead with a shafted spinner and a trailing hook. It is generally fished with a live [...]

Jig Fishing Tips

By Lindy Fishing Tackle   The leadhead jig is probably the most universal of artificial lures. Originally used for saltwater species, the jigging method became a freshwater angling “revolution” in the 1950′s and early 1960′s. Anglers soon discovered that jigs take all inland sport fish, especially walleyes, crappies, and bass. Even with today’s assortment of [...]

Lindy Rigs – Everything You Need to Know

Lindy Fishing Tackle Lindy Rigging revolutionized live bait fishing in the 1960′s and is still one of the most popular and productive methods for taking walleyes throughout the country. Lindy Rigs can take panfish, walleyes, bass, northern pike, trout and any bottom feeding fish wherever they are–in natural lakes, man-made reservoirs, rivers and streams. With [...]

Shallow Water Walleyes…in 100-Degree Heat

By Chris Hustad Scenario: It’s the end of June, almost 100 degrees and high humidity…what do you do? Well, I would say it all depends on the lake and the ecosystem in place. I would assume most walleye anglers would’ve been seeking out the deeper breaks looking for baitfish off deep ledges and humps. In [...]

Suspended Walleyes

By Chris Hustad Scenario: You wake up and spend all morning working deep or shallow water walleyes off structure, humps, points and breaks. The results…nothing. While the graph is showing a few spotty fish here and there off the bottom, you move on trying to work another piece of structure in search of fish. The [...]

Walleye Recipes

Here’s some favorite walleye recipes of ours. Broiled Walleye Recipe : 2 lbs of Walleye fillets Cut fillets into about 1/2″ strips 4-5 Tablespoons of Lemon Juice 3-4 Garlic cloves, minced 3 Tablespoons of Soy Oil 3 1/2 Tablespoons White Wine 3 pinches of fresh chopped sweet Basil Salt & Pepper to Taste Blend all [...]

Tips for Spring Walleyes in Minnesota

By Eric Hustad I can always tell when winter is coming to an end because I put another new tackle box together. I spend hours figuring out inventory, and deciding what I need for the upcoming spring. Don’t forget the time spent checking out the latest in new fishing lures at the sporting goods stores. I [...]

10 Steps to Better Jigging

By Ted Takasaki   Most anglers believe that they know all about jigs just because jigs have been around ever since man first pinched lead shot on a hook. But, that’s just not so. Jigging basics may seem simple enough and mastering the fundamental of jigging technique can mean the difference between catching fish and [...]

Matching Floats for Slip Bobber Fishing

From Lindy Fishing Tackle There are a lot of opportunities at slip bobber fishing, and this method can be used for a lot of fish species. Thill® has done a lot with their bobbers, or they call, “floats” to increase your fishing success. These aren’t the bobbers of yesterday, and we’ve come a long ways [...]

Fishing Deepwater Crankbaits

Lindy Tackle Team The Lindy Tackle team has put together some tips to help you target and effectively use crankbaits in deepwater situations. On Deep Mud Flats:   Many of the country’s reservoirs contain large mud flats. Walleyes will inhabit these flats, especially when insect hatches are coming off the mud. When it’s calm, the [...]

No Snag Secrets to Lindy Rigging

By Ron Lindner – Use a lighter line from the swivel to the hook, preferably 2-4lb less than the main line on your reel. – Because of the unique cam action, you may feel some resistance, much like an increasing pressure. Usually a sharp tight-line yank will pull it free–or set the hook on a [...]

Extra Hooks Bring the Sting

Our Outdoors Nick Simonson     In one of the best Simpsons episodes, Moe uses a punch-absorbing Homer to relive his glory days as a boxer. But when Homer ends up having to fight the heavyweight champion, the all too Tyson-like Drederick Tatum, Moe searches through his bag of tricks to find the weapon that [...]

Free Fishing Log – Printable Fishing Log

Our Outdoors Nick Simonson “Putting together the fishing pieces of the puzzle” Fishing, no matter how good a person gets at it, is still the grandest puzzle of all. There are so many elements that have to be put into place such as weather, season, bait, lures, and so on. When looked at in hindsight, [...]

Fast & Easy Fish Cleaning Tips for Walleye, Perch, and Panfish

By Chris Hustad The fish cleaning techniques described here are nothing new, and is mainly intended for beginners. This process takes about a minute for each fish, depending on experience. The example shown is using a walleye, but can work all the same on perch, crappies and bluegills. On those crappies, you DO NOT need to [...]

Fishing Deepwater Crankbaits

Lindy Tackle Team The Lindy Tackle team has put together some tips to help you target and effectively use crankbaits in deepwater situations. On Deep Mud Flats:   Many of the country’s reservoirs contain large mud flats. Walleyes will inhabit these flats, especially when insect hatches are coming off the mud. When it’s calm, the [...]

Solunar Tables

By Doug Leier When your hunting and fishing skills are comparable to those of Captain Kangaroo, you need all the help you can get. One tool that doesn’t come via mail order or credit card swipe is the solunar tables listed in many magazines and newspaper outdoors sections. Like most people who spend a lot [...]