The walleye fishing in the Alexandria area continues to be some of the best I’ve seen in years. Other than the occasional cold front which slows the bite for a day or two, the fishing has been very consistent. We’ve been able to catch a decent number of walleye nearly every time we hit the water.
The majority of the fish I’ve been catching have been in 17-22 feet of water near the outside weed edge. This time of year just about every technique you can think of will work at some point. The trick to consistently catching walleye is in deciding when to use each technique.
For example, I prefer to use fast presentations like spinners and crank baits when I’m looking for fish or the fish are spread out over a particular area. I like to tip the spinners with a leech or night crawler. You can fish these techniques easily in areas with short weeds or scattered weed clumps. I will trolls these baits picking up a walleye here or there all day long.
That is unless I see a concentrated school of fish. This is where I pull out my “slow tactics”. I prefer to use Lindy rigs and slip bobber rigs with leeches or night crawlers in these situations. The slower presentations allow me to spend more time sitting directly over the fish instead of going over them fast and then turning around to do it again. If the school of fish I was seeing split apart I will quickly go back to my fast presentations and look for the next big school!
This program will work like clockwork the next few weeks at least. Then, as the walleye bite dies down I’ll switch my efforts over to catching huge smallmouth. In September the smallmouth go on a fall feeding binge that no angler will want to miss. I’ll discuss the smallmouth bite more in my next report. Good luck and feel free to email me with questions.
