I keep reading about guys fishing Walleyes in the weeds, but they never talk about presentation. How do you guys fish them?
Walleye Fishing
Fishing Walleyes in the weeds
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Fishing Swimbaits for Walleye and Pike at night:
Swimbaits work very well for pike and walleye at night. A great natural color for night time fishing is the Berkely Flatback shad in Pearl Blue color. It is also a fantastic color during the day. At night, it shows as somewhat of a solid light silver, and its easily seen by all fish. Now if your not getting knocked by natural colors- try this:
Take a white or opaque/ solid silver colored swim bait in any of your favorite brands. My favorite for this trick is the Berkely flatback shad in Peach Pearl- which I literally have a lifetime supply of just for this reason. Now take some of the scented plastic lure dye and dye the body of the swimbait neon yellow. Yes..neon yellow. You can now take a swimbait and make it a highly visible nightime fishing tool that fish slam. It works- I have caught many pike and walleye using this trick and honestly when I fish this dyed neon yellow swimbait at night I never get skunked. It is highly visible so even pike can spot from yards away and slam it. I have seen walleye swim after this dyed swimbait from 25 plus yards away using a spotlight in shallow cold water during the fall, And the garlic smells good. Try it...good fishing everyone....
Nemab man- unfortunately they are discontinued but you can still find them online I beleive. They are a pretty firm plastic so they last a good amount of fish. You can use other 5 inch swim shad bodies also. The MC brand 5 inch swimbaits are the closest I have found to the Berkley's.They are a little softer also. They will get hung up on hard items like stumps and trees but once you get the hang of retreiving them that seems to really not happen a lot. The storm wildeye swim shads are good also. They are a one piece swimbait with the hook already rigged up. They are pretty good but the Flatback shad from Berkely is the best I have ever used. It has the right colors, firmness, scent and vibration that makes fish eat them. They are not gulp so you wont get crap all over your nails and blouse. The Owner jig heads are expensive but they are by far the best bullet head in the world. They are heavy duty salt water grade and you can only get them online. The kalins work well and other triangle swimbait heads work also. I am not selling these just offering tips to my fellow fisherman. They work on many species and thats what makes them so impressive. I have never seen a bait that you can fish that will catch many different species. These are the best for Walleye and Pike, but the bass, musky, salmon, even catfish love these swimbaits.
Fishing walleye in the weeds at the lake where I live requires finding pockets at the weed edges where they turn in or out and fish those just outside the weed edge at dusk with leeches under small floats set about 18" deep . I let the breeze float this through these pockets and the walleyes do the rest . These shallow fish are very spooky , so usually have to be in place before the sun goes down , so as not to spook them when you arrive .
The berkely flatback shad with an owner jig head is not only the best walleye bait to throw in and around weeds but it is the best all around walleye bait in the world and actually is the best all around multi-species bait ever created. Doug Stange from In Fisherman was not joking or BS'ing when he wrote all of those articles and made all of those videos explaining how to fish, what colors, and where. Pearl Blue, Senorita, and herring are the best colors. If you throw any 3 of these you will cover almost every type of food available in the midwest. If I can crush walleye and northern around Chicago area waters with you know they work. When I bring them up north its crazy fun with the walleye, pike, musky, and bass. The storm wildeye swim shad is a close second in 4-6 inch. The berkely flatback shad is a crankin lure where you have to get your cadence down and get your rythym down. Its usually crank crank crank every 10-15 ft then do slight pauses. This lets the lure dive down a couple of feet, then continue crankin and repeat. If you encounter weeds with these rip them out very aggressively- you will often get hammered even when the lures is covered in weeds. Fishing these around weeds is the Key because green living weeds is where the life is in the whole ecosystem.Fishing in the open abyss is often pointless because there is no life. You want deep weed edges and deeper weeds- 6- 12 ft of living green weeds. That is the key to fishing these swimbaits and any swimbait is green living weeds.Cast out, let them go to the bottom. When they hit the bottom jerk up to hop the lure up 2-4 ft, then start your stop go retreive. The lure will be swimming very nicely a couple feet above the bottom and through the weeds and get ready for that hit cause they SLAM these. I am strict catch and release with everything but I have had to keep a couple walleye because they actually did swallow the 5 inch swimbait 80 percent pass the hook. They want to actually eat and swallow these. Its usually a violent hit. They look amazing in the water and they truely are the best walleye bait ever created.
Most walleye anglers look for hard bottom structure, but weed beds can often hold the mother load of big eyes. There are a number of lures and presentations you can use to catch walleye out of the weeds. Flashy crank baits and spoons are some of the more popular choices. Here we break down everything you need to know about: How To Catch Walleye In The Weeds
Tight Lines!
I'm not much of a walleye fisherman. I've targeted them with bobbers/jigs with live bait on humps/weedlines etc. I will say the best bite I've ever come across though was throwing swimbaits over/through the weeds. Caught some very nice avg sized fish. Using a 4-5" paddle tail bait on a swim jig head resulted in 8 fish on two different weedlines with an avg size of 22". Happened on the pattern while targeting bass lol. Now it happens often for me when I fish the northwoods(a few trips a year).
I love weed edges and jigging. If you have a good walleye feel, this can be a lot of fun. And yes, the gills will be pesty... I will also vertical jig weeds if they are thick and I need to get into them. Depending on how far down the top of the weeds are, you can also use rip shads over the top of the weeds. This sometimes will get them to hit.
Fishing weeds is one of my least favorite presentations, but there are times it needs to be done. If the weeds are up to the surface but you can get a line down, I either go wtih a bobber that I can drop straight down, or a jig that I can drop straight down. If the weeds are not up to the surface and you can run your trolling motor through them, either run shallow crankbaits or spinners. Spinners can be run with no weight or a small splitshot to get it down a little ways. I do however like pulling spinners over weedbeds.
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