Shalleye's

Now there is a few times in a season where a shallow water (8feet or less) walleye pattern presents it's self, me and the boys lovingly refer to these fish as shalleyes.

Headed into the north a couple weeks ago with my dad and this pattern was on in full swing, started out in one of our usual walleye lakes and ended up smacking quite a few fish in the 11-15 foot range then I started pitching my jighead with trigger x up shallower and finding much bigger fish. After making a lure change to the x rap it was game on.

The nice thing about shalleyes is they are up and active, usually chasing bait so a minnow profile works well and they seem to fight a lot more than when you catch them deeper.

http://i649.photobucket.com/albums/u...psqgcmjb6i.jpg

The next day we decided to tackle some new water and went to a lake I've never fished walleye on, armed with the knowledge that fish were shallow some rapala countdowns and x raps we got to work picking apart wind blown rocks.

Wasnt long before we were on the fish and the average size was really solid.

http://i649.photobucket.com/albums/u...pspenu0avg.jpg

http://i649.photobucket.com/albums/u...psrihxddhz.jpg

One tip I can give for using these minnow baits for walleye. Your regular twitching/slashing cadence that you would use for bass or pike doesn't really apply for walleye. "Sweeping" the rod tip slowly about 3-4ft and just swimming the bait forward then reeling up the slack line as you bring the rod tip back seems to be the ticket. It's a slower retrieve style but the walleye love it. More often then not they hit on the pause and your next "sweep" will be a hook set.

Good work, Very nice, and some good advise. Were North are you ? Walleye in the last pic looks like he's a wanna be BLUE

North Bay Area get a lot of those blue ones some a lot more blue than others!
Next time I get a really blue one I'll snap a pic, normally I only take pics of big fish :p

Sweet report and great insight!

I've found that in dark water l lakes I almost always find some eyes shallow as long as there are weeds present but I never really associated it with a pattern, I just figured there were a population of fish that just hung out in the shallows.

There definitely is some year round shallow fish, especially when they have some nice heavy weed or wood cover to block out the light. Other times there is larger fish pushed up on bait, post spawn is always a great time for it as they try to recoup some energy.

Good report, thanks for posting.

awesome fish man thanks for sharing

hey get out of my hot spot lol im pretty sure in the one pic i know exactly where you are lol

good fish

few lakes in the area i get them in under 8 FOW year round, even on hot sunny august days i get them with shallow divers mid afternoon...

nice looking fish guys

Nice looking fish........................congrats!!