Lake Of The Ozarks... Walleye?

[Jarrett Ellis]

Weirdest thing happened yesterday... we were pre-fishing for a bass tournament and I hooked into a 3+ lb walleye... I had heard walleye where in the lake, but I definitely didn't expect to catch one in 3 ft of water in the Grand Glaize in April... today my partner caught one the same size...

There must be a good population of walleye in the lake. Any of you know anything about targeting them?

[rangerman]

I do!

Caught trolling in mid august. A little over 8 pounds.

LOZ has a great population of walleye. Just got to target them and know where and what you are looking for. If found it generally isn't a problem catching a limit. There are only a few die hard walleye guys I know, including myself that fish it. I rank LOZ very high on my list of good walleye destinations. Right now alot of bass guys will be catching them as the eyes are ready to start splurging on just about anything they can eat.

Catch some more!!!!!

I Love to catch fish with teeth.

Jason

[Jarrett Ellis]

I do!

Caught trolling in mid august. A little over 8 pounds.

LOZ has a great population of walleye. Just got to target them and know where and what you are looking for. If found it generally isn't a problem catching a limit. There are only a few die hard walleye guys I know, including myself that fish it. I rank LOZ very high on my list of good walleye destinations. Right now alot of bass guys will be catching them as the eyes are ready to start splurging on just about anything they can eat.

Catch some more!!!!!

I Love to catch fish with teeth.

Jason

Boy! That must have been fun to catch! My fishin buddy did a trip a couple years ago to Lake Erie and he said they trolled some green spoons (or something like that) on flats, does that method hold true down here too?

[rangerman]

I have never personally trolled spoons. I have a bad habit of sticking to what works for me. Three way rigs, bottom bouncers, leadcore and longline trolling generally work very well on LOZ and other missouri lakes.

I will let you know this walleyes on the bottom look completely different than most other echos on the fish finder.......That is if you can see them at all.

To target walleyes alone, the Niangua Arm above Larry Gayle is a good place to start.

[Jarrett Ellis]

I have never personally trolled spoons. I have a bad habit of sticking to what works for me. Three way rigs, bottom bouncers, leadcore and longline trolling generally work very well on LOZ and other missouri lakes.

I will let you know this walleyes on the bottom look completely different than most other echos on the fish finder.......That is if you can see them at all.

To target walleyes alone, the Niangua Arm above Larry Gayle is a good place to start.

Thanks for the info RM, I'll be sure to try it out!

[Guest csfishinfool]

Was up pre fishing for bfl after limiting by noon pulled out a crappie jig and started pithching it on bluff ends never did hit keeper crappie but did have a 19" walleye I've caught them good on jerkbaits in the cold up to seven pounds

[Camalama]

I'd love to target walleye on LOZ. I knew they were there, but didn't know they were there in abundance. I've never done any long line trolling, but I'm wondering if you can find them using Humminbird SI. Has anyone tried this? I would assume once you find them you could fish for them vertically on a drop shot or something similar.

Thanks for the info! I don't get down to LOZ very often, but this may be something worth trying!

Cameron

[fishinwrench]

I do!

Caught trolling in mid august. A little over 8 pounds.

LOZ has a great population of walleye. Just got to target them and know where and what you are looking for. If found it generally isn't a problem catching a limit. There are only a few die hard walleye guys I know, including myself that fish it. I rank LOZ very high on my list of good walleye destinations. Right now alot of bass guys will be catching them as the eyes are ready to start splurging on just about anything they can eat.

Catch some more!!!!!

I Love to catch fish with teeth.

Jason

Nice one J.

[rangerman]

Thanks FW....

As far as seeing them on side imaging I dont have a unit yet....and I stress yet, but depending on conditions alot of the eyes seem to lay so close to the bottom that they area very difficult to pick up on any locator. I noticed in BS and TR that alot of times you may not even mark fish and you end up picking up fish anyway. You can find them suspend chasing shad sometimes.

I can't remember the figures but mdc stocks a good number of walleye in LOZ. There was a couple of recent years where they stocked a million plus. I kind of fell out of bass fishing and into walleye fishing. Except for incidental catches by the bass guys, it can really be a different fish to learn to catch. LOTS and LOTS of different techniques. On lakes like Lake of the Ozarks there are only a few devoted walleye guys that chase them. The summer is real good for trolling. Speeds around 1.8 to 2.3 generally works good. Bait color depends alot on water clarity.

Even if you have a bass boat you can still troll using just a trolling motor......I now fish from a Ranger 620dvs with a 6Hp mercury 4 stroke kicker and though it is ALOT more comfortable, you bass guys out there can still use your boats.

Get after 'em

[Camalama]

Rangerman, That is great info. Next time I'm headed down there I'm going to give you a shout for some help and I'm going to target some walleye. They are such a great fish to catch. I'll be in Red Lake, Ontario June 11-20 fishing for walleye and maybe a few northern. That's where my avatar was taken from. My first "decent" walleye.

As for the SI, its pretty remarkable what you can see with that thing. Much more accurate than the old units. Then again, you have to know what you are looking for. Typically, like when we are crappie fishing, if you know a general location for the fish, say they are holding tight to docks, or suspended inn the tops of trees, you can then eliminate water by searching with the SI. We eliminate docks this way. We'll drive past the end of the dock looking under it with the SI and you can tell without question which ones are loaded up with crappie and which ones aren't.

Thanks again,

Cameron

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