Early Season Walleye While a lot of Walleye fishing consists of deeper fishing off of points, flats and weeds, through much of the year for the next couple of months dominant Walleye patterns will occur in shallow water due to the spring spawning ritual of Walleye. As early as late ice to ice out Walleye begin to make the move to their eventual spawning grounds. On rivers, Walleye will swim as far upriver as possible until reaching dams and other river blocking structures.  Once reaching these structures Walleye will find likely areas usually within a mile or two of that structure to deposit their eggs such as rocky or sandy shorelines behind current breaks.  On lakes, Walleye will move up to shallow water from their deeper winter haunts depositing their eggs in likely areas such as ... [ Read More ]

The time has come when all the permanent ice houses are off the lakes. There is far less traffic on the lakes. With spring just around the corner and warm temperatures this past week and more certainly to come, today I want to remind everyone about late ice safety and the effect that the warm spring thaw has on the lakes. As the temperatures rise to the 40’s during the day and are only dropping just below freezing at night, all the snow on top of the ice is turning into one big “lake.” if you will, on top of the ice. Even with less than a week of these warm temperatures, travel on the lakes has already come to a screeching halt, and very soon we will need to pull out the rubber boots, cleats, and possibly the waders to get on that hot panfish bite. The fishing picks up a ... [ Read More ]