By Mike Frisch
During my early career fishing walleyes, I was taught a couple “truths” regarding fish location. First, walleyes were bottom-orientated fish so it’s best to fish near bottom. Second, walleyes are often found along structural elements like points, turns, or weedlines, so those are the “go to” areas. Over the years, however, we have learned that those truths aren’t always true and that walleyes are often in places we didn’t used to look.
The advent of Forward-Facing Sonar (FFS) technology has allowed anglers to efficiently find walleyes in various locations. One location that has become popular is a lake basin. A basin is a flat-bottomed area with some of a lake’s deepest water where walleyes roam away from structure. Not only are these fish out away from any change in water depth, but they are often up in the water column, sometimes not far below the surface. Some who use FFS refer to these fish as “floaters” as these walleyes appear randomly, often one at a time, seemingly floating out in no-man’s land. Though random and sometimes hard to locate, floaters are often some of the lake’s biggest walleyes.
On a recent outing, for example, a fishing partner and I were on a shallow lake searching a basin with water depths around 20 feet. We moved quickly relying on our ActiveTarget 2 XL FFS unit to look to 80 feet out from the boat. Occasionally, we would spot a fish, often 5 to 10 feet up from bottom. We would hold the boat and cast past the fish and slowly work our baits over the fish. Several fish were biters and we had fun catching big walleyes. We caught fish on a couple baits, but our two biggest, a pair of females just over 26” came on a 3X Z-Too soft bait rigged on a ¼ ounce jig.
Utilizing FFS is one way to target walleyes away from structure, particularly those suspended in the water column. On another outing, I found fish out from structure holding closer to bottom using traditional 2D sonar. I was cruising an underwater point looking for walleyes on sonar. As I got to the point’s end, I slid into the basin where the lake flattened in about 24 feet and started to mark what I thought were walleyes. I continued to scan at least 50 yards from the tip and saw a good number of “marks” on sonar. An initial fishing pass revealed that they were walleyes. A “plain rig” – a heavy bottom bouncer, plain fluorocarbon snell with 2 hooks, tipped with a nightcrawler – put several walleyes in the boat. When that bite slowed, a few more came aboard fishing nightcrawlers on small jigs suspended below bobbers.
Whether you prefer using today’s modern technologies or favor traditional sonar to find walleyes, spending time looking up in the water column and away from structure is sound advice. Good luck with your walleye search and, as always, remember to include a youngster in your next outdoors adventure!
PHOTO – Mike Frisch releases a walleye caught “up and away!”
