Walleye patterns

[DEADhead]

Since many of us on here are in the tying mode right now, I was wondering if anyone had some interesting walleye patterns that worked for them. I've gotten quite a bit of my trout and smallmouth patterns tied already, and was interested in chasing after some walleyes during the early season...

Just looking for some good ideas other than the obvious clouser/streamer/bugger patterns.

[deeky]

Forgive me for piggybacking, but where do you look for the walleyes in the spring? This is my first year with a boat to get out there early.

Obviously no experience yet, but I'm thinking the ever popular Clousers or deceivers tied in the color of your favorite plug, and I'll brobably have some nice marabou/bunny strip leeches with some weight on them.

[DEADhead]

Ususally in the early season you should be able to find some fish in the shallows and near their spawning areas. A great deal of where the fish are will depend on the water temp. Obviously this will vary within the different regions of the state. Hopefully you will be finding the fish during their post-spawn binging.

If none of that works, work the weedbeds and you may hook into a pike.

[Quickstrike]

A great place to target walleyes on the fly is on the st louis river during the spring run. Huge ammounts of large fish will sit in water only a couple feet deep. I haven't spent much time doing it but I did catch some eyes along with some nice smallies. I assume any river system that holds walleyes in the shallow current areas would be productive as well. I appologize I don't have any secret patterns or anything. All I used was black and brown wooly buggers and would love to hear some other ideas or patterns floating around out there.

[hogsucker]

For some reason I've always done well on walleyes and drum with a white/pink fly. Go figure. I've also run into plenty of them on silver deep clousers that imitate the abundant emerald shiner. ~hogsucker

[DEADhead]

I just tied a bunch of zonkers this afternoon, pink, white, both with polar flash tails. I also tied a few deciever patterns, that looked like a perch. I got the idea off of a pattern I saw on a fly tying forum. it was called a "perchy keen". I tied several 'chili pepper' wooly buggers; beadhead, orange marabou and flashabou with a brown tinsel chenille and brown saddle hackle. I'm sure those will be deadly with the smallies

[DEADhead]

here's some photos of the flies I tied this afternoon.

Perchy Keen:

chili pepper:

olive alaskabou:

zonker:

[-Marc V-]

Those are some cool looking flies DeadHead! I've been searching for some different warm water flies for bass and such. Seeing these makes me want to sit at the vise for a while.

[hogsucker]

I've been tying a lot of epoxy-head streamers for the upcoming warmwater season. I tie the larger ones on saltwater keel hooks, and put big googly eyes on them with a big epoxy head. I've got various sizes down to #10 epoxy-nosed dace, which I paint eyes on before adding the epoxy. These baitfish imitations are perfect mid-water streamers and keeled versions are very weedless. I have had good luck with large and smallmouth bass, along with pike, bowfin, and white bass with these nearly indestructible flies. I highly reccomend trying some epoxy flies this year. ~hogsucker

[Quickstrike]

Those are some beautiful looking flies! That perch one is something I might have to try and whip up. Thanks for the imput guys, I am seriously going to make a commitment to find time to bang some eyes on the flyrod this year!

[DEADhead]

I'm a rookie tyer, but thanks for the complements!

Quickstrike, if you want to see what the fly is supposed to look like, drop me a line [email protected], and I'll show you where to get the pattern.

[-Marc V-]

Hey HogSucker . . . What do you use to paint eyes on, and how do you do it? I've heard of people whittling balsa sticks and using that as a stamp basically.

I've tried Tester (model) paint, but it seemed to run and smear when I applied epoxy. Got to be something better out there.

Thanks for the tip on the saltwater hooks. I'll have to check that out.

Marc

[DEADhead]

Use hobby acrylic paint and some quarter inch dowels sharpened in a pencil sharpener to paint the eyes on, and nail polish to finish. the acrylic paint dries flat, not glossy. Nail polish is compatible with the acrylic paints, but not so with some other paints, like the hobby model enamels. Unless you brush hard, the eye will not smudge if you use nail polish.