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This fall i started fishing for walleye and i was quite successful. Well now i have the itch to catch more but its really cold here. The lake i fish here in AZ was ice a couple weeks ago but has recently melted off. We've had a few warm days and I've thought about trying for more but I wasn't sure how they behave in the winter. My method for catching them is fish late night and very shallow water. Has anyone had any success this way in the middle of winter?
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I caught my first walleye fishing through the ice yesterday, I was just using a small jig called a Forage Minnow, made by Northland and tipping it with perch meat. Will you be fishing from your boat?
If so, you can try jigging or slow trolling with a Lindy rig and night crawler. Hope that helps.
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Well I would be fishing from the boat but my usual method is fishing at night casting into shore with a rapala. I know people fish deep during the day but i caught my big ones at night in really shallow water. I just didnt know if they did the same thing when the water was just shy of freezing over
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Do you know if the lake you fish in has perch in it? If not, what kind of bait fish are in it?
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No perch. These walleye thrive on stocked trout. I caught one that was just over 27 inches and 9lbs 11.52oz. They all get their fill of food for sure.
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Yea, you told me about your big eye, that is a large eye for sure. It does not seem that walleye that big could live on trout alone, is there crawdads in your lake or any other smaller fish, like bluegill, smallmouth or white bass?
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Yes there are plenty of craw dads and blue gill. There are some smallmouth bass too but not a very big population. They seem to be pretty aggressive toward the trout. The rapala I use resembles a small trout. But the state record, 16lbs 1.76oz, was caught out of this lake on a black plastic leech cuz live bait is illegal here.
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Walleye will feed on any young of the year minnow but trout don't have the spiked fins like some other fish so they are easier to take. Any idea, how big the trout are that are stocked in the lake you fish? Eyes feed heavy on crawdads during certain times of the year, so craw lures will work at times too. Are there leeches in this lake? Even if there isn't a big population of leaches in the lake eyes love them. Are you allowed to use night crawlers in this lake? Here is Utah live bait is not allowed but night crawlers and leaches are allowed. When they say live bait here, they are talking about live minnows, at least here.
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The trout stocked are about 8 to 14 inches. I talked to a guy yesterday that caught an 11 pound eye last year with a 12 inch trout in its stomach. There aren't any leaches at all in this lake. Night crawlers area legal. Our love bait is the same as Utah I guess the reason they aren't used is because there's nowhere to get them around here.
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There is no where to get nightcrawlers around your area or leeches? Most of the walleye pros around here buy their leeches on-line and have them shipped but nightcrawlers should work as well, if there isn't any leeches in your lake. The last we talked, you had no fishfinder, is that still the case?
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We can buy nightcrawlers here but I just never knew where to get leeches. Maybe I can order some for this spring. I talked to a guy who has been fishing this lake for 36 years and said he caught a 14 pounder in October on a husky jerk rapala fishing it the same way I fish the floaters. He said he pulls in the big ones on rapalas and when he wants to catch the smaller eaters he uses nightcrawlers. He doesnt have any experience fishing the winter like im wanting to do so he had no tips for me. And no I still don't have a fish finder. I would buy one but I'm headed to Phoenix for school late spring and I won't be fishing much down there. So ill be blind fishing this spring. I think I'm going to give it a shot on Tuesday evening so any extra tips before then will help. Ill give it a shot and let you know if anything works.
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All I can suggest is a jig and a worm. If you can find a jig that has the strips like a small perch, that could help but just using a 1/4 oz red jig head might work as well. Use at least half the Night crawler and slowly bounce it across the bottom moving as slow as you can in your boat. Don't thread the nightcrawler all the way on the hook, instead just thread it on the shank of the hook and let the remainder trail straight behind the hook. Good luck, hope this helps.
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Thank you for the tip. I really appreciate it. Ill give it a shot and see if I can get into some fish. Ill let you know how I do
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I only fish for 'eyes on a couple waters but WH2 seems to have covered everything. I prefer throwing cranks but when they are lethargic it's hard to beat a crawler on a jig.
The best tip I've ever got was "fish as slow as you possibly can, then cut that in half".
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Awesome. Thank you. I tend to get impatient when Im trying something new. I've never fished with worms for eyes like that I'm still new to eye fishing. Do you think I'd be best if I just kill the motor and drift around while jigging?
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When I'm jigging or dragging I use my bow mount to keep me still and let the wind move me slowly. Definitely kill the motor.
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Cool I will give it a whirl. Thanks for the tip. Ill let you know how it works for me.
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most of the guys here in mich use something like this
![[Image: gforum.cgi?do=post_attachment;postatt_id=93916]](http://www.bigfishtackle.com/cgi-bin/gforum/gforum.cgi?do=post_attachment;postatt_id=93916)
this is a rapala,
sometimes we will put a peice of a minnow tail on the back side of this lure, you can use soft plastic minnow tails as well, the reason is to make it swim a little more sparatic as it goes down.
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[url "http://www.bigfishtackle.com/photos/showphoto.php/photo/17595/cat/838"] ![[Image: DSCN1739.JPG]](http://www.bigfishtackle.com/photos/data/838/thumbs/DSCN1739.JPG) [/url]
you can catch them using wax worms,
the real trick is where you target them, In michigan we look right around 20-28 feet.
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Just after ice off in most areas the water temps are optimal for walleye to begin spawning. I'm not familiar with your area, but I would start searching for the areas they are using for spawning like up feeder creeks or at the mouths of incoming water. If that isn't available look for gravel shoreline areas and troll slowly in 5' to 10' with a shallow running stick bait like a Thunderstick. Also look for any areas that has newly emerging grass and fish it slow hopping a 1/8 oz. jig and 3" twister tail. Most important thing is to keep searching shallow during the prime hours and a bit deeper (10' to 20') in the middle of the day if you haven't hit them shallow.
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