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Walleye Discoveries - Underwater Viewing
by Cory Schmidt

Ok, so everyone out there is talking about underwater cameras. And while I'm not usually so quick to jump on the bandwagon, well, this one's just a no-brainer; something all serious anglers have been hoping for, dreaming of in one form or another, forever.

Eons ago, I remember watching the TV program, Flipper; the show in which the marine ranger's boat had in it a color monitor that showed live sub-surface action-Flipper battling the evil forces of the aquamarine as Mr. Ranger buzzed above, watching. And, gee, how that would've been just too cool, if only it were so . . .

The fact is, of course, underwater cameras have long been a revelation waiting to happen-the technology as we now know it is really pretty simple. But it's how the camera has helped challenge and change my walleye fishing that I want to talk about, and how it will eventually change the way you fish as well. So beginning with two seasons ago-my first with an underwater camera - I want to tell you about a few days in the boat.

Using An Underwtaer Camera
I'd always been curious of a certain spot on Gull Lake near Brainerd, an area so rich with fishing potential I just had to know for sure. You've got spots like this, right? Never caught too much there, but it had always just felt right.

Well, this spot's just like that-it's a little cabbage weed covered hump that tops out at 8 feet just inside the neckdown current area of a large bay. The hump's surrounded by 20 and then 30 feet of water where it again begins shelling up toward the weedline on the eastern shoreline.

Scouting
In past trips scouting I'd always marked multitudes of big arcs on the graph, from the base of the cabbage on the hump, down into the basin and then back into the shore-based weedline. In about 22 tries, I once took a five and a nine-pound walleye, plus a big pike in about ten minute's fishing.

Twenty one times I drew a blank. In a weird sort of way, this type of fishing fires me up. Overcoming tough situations and all, I suppose.

What Could It Be
So by obvious reason of strange fishing logic it was the first spot I ever checked with the Aqua-View. And sure enough, as I arrived (as always) big hooks appeared everywhere on the graph, suspended, shallow and belly to bottom.

As the camera probed to the base of the cabbage weeds I began to view some big redhorse suckers, lots of them. And then as I began drifting into the open saddle area into 25 feet, more suckers, a few rock bass and one or two small pods of bluegills.

Finally
Then, finally, just as I began raising the camera to write the spot off for good, I flashed what looked like a white tail; the camera dangled in place, another white tail. Over the next ten minutes as I quietly drifted and viewed in 14 to 18 feet over 30, numbers of big walleyes glided in and out of view. Interspersed between the walleyes were little bluegills and crappies, seemingly dazed, lost.

The Tactic
I knew the answer immediately: cast deep diving plugs. After experimenting a bit with #9 Shad Raps and a few others, I cracked the code, a Storm Flat Wart.

The Brainstorm
The action that ensued remains to this day some of my happiest fishing. But something else occurred to me that day, which as it turns out, had really been there all along, slowly germinating in my brain from experience to experience.

It had happened many times that summer on other lakes while trolling open water basin areas. Yet it had taken a visual encounter with walleyes in order for me to finally realize just how often walleyes feed in open water-suspended and away from structure.

If it happens on Gull Lake, I remember thinking-a lake known for it's structure-based walleyes, then certainly there are fish feeding in open water in a lot more places than we realize.

Big Walleyes
This realization led me back to my favorite open water walleye fishery, not 60 miles away. All summer I had been catching big walleyes in the 26 to 32-inch range while trolling just above the thermocline over 80 feet of water. Not exactly traditional walleye "structure." Yet each trip produced more fish above 25 inches than below.

So going in, I knew there were walleyes out there, but I wanted a better idea of just how many fish we were dealing with. Down went the underwater camera, right into the thick of the thermocline. (Those of you who've used underwater cameras before know that without a solid point of reference-- like the lake bottom-- it becomes difficult and almost disorienting to view).

On this day, however, although we were viewing in the 20-foot range over 80 feet of water, there were plenty of points of reference. Big clouds of silvery dwarf ciscoes shimmered by as if on a great hurry somewhere, but nowhere in particular. Then the camera bumped the head of something big (a lake trout?)- there's just not much else to run into out in the abyss.

Another Discovery
Suddenly, inexplicably, we were in the midst of a vast, but sparse school of very large walleyes, pike, and a few big smallmouths-pretty much travelling or "loosely associated" with the ciscoes.

The amazing thing, though, was that these open water fish weren't nearly so flighty, not so spooky in the presence of the camera as were so many fish I'd seen closer to structure. We were actually able to drift right alongside several big walleyes for minutes at a time (maybe they were following us?).

The answer to my initial question of "how many walleyes" turned out to be many more and many more large fish of different species than I'd previously believed. But smallmouth bass? Suspended in open water? Big pike? Yes, and all there for a single common reason, to eat.

It's Very Fun
Now nearly on the eve of three fishing seasons later, prospects for potential new underwater camera revelations remain as great as ever. Eventually, underwater cameras might be as common in the boats of fine anglers as sonar units. Not that it's even so much all the new things you'll learn as it might be the fun you'll discover along the way.

So in the end, if it can be said about fishing that it's in those rare discoveries, those individual revelations that real magic comes alive, well, that's just fine with me.

For now, I can tell you with excitement, nearly brimming over the edges in the middle of another fine season, that there are lonely schools of log-sized walleyes swimming out there. I'm ready.

  [Editors Note] The Vista-Cam Underwater Video System is an awesome tool for this type of exploring and priced right as well.
Click here for more information.

Red Pine Resort
Ice Fishing on Kabetogama.