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Seaguar Report
Josh Teigen with nice walleye
Fishing aquatic vegetation is second nature to bass anglers, but the green stuff is just as crucial for walleye fishing. They use weedlines as travel routes and know that grass holds plenty of forage, making them the perfect place to search for their next meal.
A trio of Wisconsin guides, Josh Teigen, Troy Peterson, and Jeff Evans, search out weeds in the late spring and early summer months. They have different approaches to fishing them, but they all work and help them and their clients catch some of their biggest walleyes of the year.
Slip Bobbers on Weedlines
Iron River, Wisconsin's, Jeff Evans
Iron River, Wisconsin's, Jeff Evans guides clients on various lakes for walleye from the May opener through the entire fishing season. Many tactics work when targeting grass on inland lakes for Evans, but he says a slip bobber rig with a minnow or leech is hard to beat.
"After the walleye spawn, they recover in deep water and then head to the weeds," says Evans. "As the new weed beds emerge, the walleye will follow the green, new growth and you can find these areas on your side imaging. They'll follow the edge as new grass grows and later in the year it might be in 15 to 20-feet of water on clear lakes, but only 8 to 12-feet of water on more stained lakes."
According to Evans, the bite typically lasts until the 4th of July, when many walleye switch gears to mud basins, reefs and points. "Some years, the bite can go all summer long and into the fall months," he says. "My theory is that it has to do with water temperatures. If it gets into the 70s too early, they'll get out deeper quicker, but they stick around if it's a gradual rise."
Evans likes to rig up his clients with a 7-foot medium-light spinning rod and a quality reel spooled with 30-pound Seaguar Smackdown Flash Green braid with a leader of 1- pound Gold Label fluorocarbon. On the business end, it's generally a slip bobber set to the desired depth with a slip knot and a ¼-ounce egg sinker. He then rigs a barrel swivel with an 18-inch leader of Gold Label with either a #1 Octopus hook or 1/16-ounce jighead used to rig the leech or minnow.
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MDNR Report
Transmitter being implanted in walleye
A new study begins this month on Saginaw Bay, using acoustic transmitters that will be implanted in walleye to help researchers with the Michigan DNR, Michigan State University and several partner agencies obtain data about where the fish spawn.
Acoustical receiver for tracking walleyeFish in such telemetry projects have acoustic transmitters affixed to them. Each transmitter then beeps a fish-specific code every few minutes. Acoustic receivers deployed in Lake Huron decode the tag beeps and log when fish tags are detected. The network of acoustic receivers in Saginaw Bay includes receivers in the mouths of rivers to listen for tagged fish moving to spawning grounds and receivers in Saginaw Bay to determine where walleye may be spawning.
Having a better understanding of relative sources of natural reproduction for walleye will help fishery managers determine which rivers and reefs to protect and, when needed, where to invest in actions that enhance and improve fish habitat.
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MDNR Report
Walleye with Jaw Tag
The MDNR began to jaw tag 3,000 walleye across multiple Saginaw Bay tributary rivers the last week of March. As the DNR adds more tagged walleye to Michigan waters, anglers are asked to report tagged fish to assist data collection efforts.
Anyone catching a tagged fish is asked to report the following information using the tag return form at Michigan.gov/EyesInTheField:
- Species
- Length
- Weight (if known)
- Tag location (where tag was attached)
- Identification number (the larger of the two sets of numbers)
- Tag return address (for example MICH DNR MM-1)
- Capture date and location
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MDNR Report
Croton Dam
Muskegon River anglers should be on the lookout for Michigan Department of Natural Resources personnel collecting walleye eggs below Croton Dam this spring.
Walleye will be collected with electrofishing boats through late March and to April 14. The date these collections begin will depend on water temperatures, the presence of ripe fish and other factors. It is anticipated most work will be completed from the last week of March through the first week of April. Five days of electrofishing are planned, with four of those being egg-take days.
"This adult population consists of mostly stocked fish," said Ed Pearce, DNR fisheries technician supervisor who coordinates the egg take. "The Muskegon River has the largest run of walleye in the Lake Michigan watershed south of Green Bay."