Bank Fishing Walleyes

[Bitethis]

anyone like the xraps? I have had luck on jerkbaits without feathertails, but not so much on jerks WITH feather tails.

@Slider - I hear banjo minnows tear easily? never tried them though, always looked like a gimick for the novice fisherman that is attracted by glitter and flash. Have good luck with them?

[Wayne SW/MO]

anyone like the xraps? I have had luck on jerkbaits without feathertails, but not so much on jerks WITH feather tails.

@Slider - I hear banjo minnows tear easily? never tried them though, always looked like a gimick for the novice fisherman that is attracted by glitter and flash. Have good luck with them?

They have been my best jerkbait for several years now. I don't really do the walleye and my success has come in the colder months on bass. The gold and the ghost have been my best colors. The gold is actually more of a blue with some orange and I suspect it is taken for a long ear. The ghost is a white that is hard to describe.

I like to use braid with my jerkbaits because I find that the take is most often on the pause and braid will signal it if you're paying attention.

I make a lot of trips to the pothole in the early spring, but I really don't see that many caught on lures, live bait is a different story. This is just an observation because I don't consider myself a walleye fisherman, just an observer killing time mostly.

[Kayser]

Another stupid question- suspending, or floating minnow/jerkbaits?

[Bitethis]

Another stupid question- suspending, or floating minnow/jerkbaits?

my preference is:

Shallow: 0-3' of water, floating

Open water: 4' fow or more, suspending.

[vonreed]

Banjo Minnow in purple, black, or dark blue is all I ever use fore them Vonreed. Will try a slider next trip though.

A guy can't beat a Banjo Minnow, but those colors are very hard to find. It seems every serious walleye fisherman around has bought them up.

[Bill Babler]

Just a quick note here. The walleye are still just tearing it up. Mostly below Beaver. 99% are being caught on suspending custom painted and weighted jerkbaits. In the last 4 days even in the cold temps guys are catching them aplenty. With fish in the between 6 and 10 pound range.

Here is the deal. If you are thinking you are fishing the stickbait slow, you are not. I am a stickbait fiend, and fish it as well as anyone. Buster is better. Sainiato is also good and those boys are just rippin walleye.

Tim had one over 10 pounds on Friday.

If you are making over 10 casts per hour, you are fishing to fast. Most are fishing the bait with custom bills or with a lot of weight, on 8 pound line. Most are using mono and sinking the bait either with the bills or the weight of the bait, so it will suspend. With carbon line the bait will continue to sink and not maintain a depth level.

Most of the walleye are coming suspended in the river channel. Look where the channel bends in close to the bank and fish it 100 yrds of where it gets there and where it moves away. Most often the boat is setting in 25 to 35 ft. Most bites are coming 15 to 20 ft. over that depth, or about 2/3rds. of the way back to the boat. If you get bit closer to the bank, it is most likely a bass or crappie.

You have to let that bait soak and just keep the line tight. Just a small head twitch from time to time. When the bait comes in, it is always behind the boat and deep. If you are getting it back to the boat even with where you casted it out, you are going to catch zero. They want it "Dead Still."

A very good day is 2 to 4 walleye, 2 crappie and 6 or 8 bass for 8 or 9 hours. That means if you have 2 guys in the boat fishing 9 man hours each, or 18 man hours, that is 10 bites in 18 hours of fishing.

Since December 1st. Buster has caught close to 100 walleye and had about 1/3 of that over 5 pounds, with several over 10 and one 13 pounder. Off about 20 different locations.

The entire key is speed. You have just got to be dead slow, The bite is very seldom nothing more that a slight tighting of the line and if you get hammered it is a tick, or if the bite is really a nice bump, it is usually a bass.

Without telling you where the boys are catching them this is just about all I can do and still live to tell.

Good Luck

[Bitethis]

Just a quick note here. The walleye are still just tearing it up. Mostly below Beaver. 99% are being caught on suspending custom painted and weighted jerkbaits. In the last 4 days even in the cold temps guys are catching them aplenty. With fish in the between 6 and 10 pound range...

Without telling you where the boys are catching them this is just about all I can do and still live to tell.

That is a great chunk of information, thank you for sharing!!!!!

[Ham]

Thanks for the intell Bill and it sounds like a Great bite for walleye which I love to catch and love to eat, BUT I caught 109 trout in less than 5 hours of fishing on the White river 20 miles from my house using about 2 gallons of gas in the trout boat. I can't justify dragging the Bass Cat to Kissee Mills from my house for 10 bites a day. I just can't.

[powerdive]

Awesome post, Bill. Thank you.

[Bill Babler]

People can really get discouraged with this type of fishing. This type of really advanced fishing is usually for those folks that have no boundaries. By this I mean, a guy that can go all day and not get a bite and make his last cast of the day as good as his first.

Some folks would call this type of fishing really struggling. It is not. it is a specific technique. You know the fish are there and you know what they will bite. You just don't know when.

This is true finesse fishing. Not so much with small baits but tecnique.

The ability to believe in your locations and your presentation. To not to have to get bit to know you are doing the right thing in the correct locations. To not switch baits and continuesly try to adapt, but to make your best presentation time after time and know that the fish are there and when and if they want to you will get bit.

Buster has been catching walleye like this for 20 years on upper bull. It is a very hard pill to swallow and also to replicate if you don't have faith. In December, January and February this type of fishing will produce I believe more walleye on upper bull than anything else. The numbers for guys that fish over there 5 days a week gets crazy, just because they are spending so many days on the water.

Maybe only 2-3-4 or 5 fish in an entire day, but when you multiple it by 50 or 60 days on the water it turns into astronomical numbers of very quality walleye.

Not a lot of places in the Winter you can go and catch walleye like this. Buster has had quite a few guide trips this Winter and his trips have done well, when they listen to him. Buster usually fishes on Guide Trips and if your going to catch fish with him, you had better do what he says and fish exactly how he fishes.

I for one just have a hard time fishing as slow as Buster. A week ago, we fished 2 locations in a 9 hr. period. Took him about 4 hrs. to cover the first 100 yrd. stretch before we moved. It was a great place in a transition bend where the boat was setting in 36ft. and we were a huge full cast from the bank. There was timber and stumps present on a no nothing bank. The secret was the channel, curved and met the bank just past a flat and continued around this entire stretch before the channel moved back across the lake. We had about 200 yrds. of very good channel swing.

He told me he had taken about 40 walleye off this swing this year, and we caught 3 on it, in the 4 hrs. We had 6 bites total, but 3 four pound walleye. I had two bites and missed them both. Buster had 4 bites and caught 3 of them.

If you want to give it a try, fish those types of locations. Put on a suspending jerkbait with either gold, red or chartruse on it, take a deep breath and a thermose of coffee and just take your time.

It would be really easy to fish this off the bank. Most locations we are fishing, there is a ramp or public access to those banks. We have had people walking on the bank exactly where we are catching the fish while we have been fishing. Most are looking for arrowheads with the low water. They are also riding dirt bikes and 4 wheelers on all the banks we are fishing. Don't know if that is legal or not, but they are doing it.