Sometimes determining the best walleye fishing techniques involves looking at the common mistakes that people make when they head out to the lake for a full day of fishing. Setting yourself up for success means allaying fears, myths, and misinformation and building knowledge based on pure proven fact.



For example, when people head to the lake on a boat, most think of the area as a big fish bowl, with specimens swimming to and fro throughout the entire body of water. However, the true angler is aware that fish tend to gather and hold in certain areas, and most of the lake may be fruitless despite all efforts. Walleye fishing techniques used by these anglers have been developed through the years with the assistance of maps, depthfinders, and fishing reports that offer helpful hints of where the bites can be found. To tweak your technique, choose three or four spots in the lake that seem like productive areas based on your research and target these instead of wasting your time trolling the entire lake with no results.

Often areas where there are large underwater structures tend to be great fish gathering spots. When you find a structure (perhaps a sunken island or a gathering of debris), you should start by targeting the transitional areas, where the bottom may change from hard to soft, sand to rock, or similar, since these are favored ridges for walleye. Fishing techniques often fishing the entire structure to assure that nothing was missed in your efforts, but it is usually more fulfilling to target three or four areas of the structure for best results.

One of the best walleye fishing techniques is to look for baitfish. Walleye are quite instinctual and, to put it bluntly, dumb. They simply follow the food in their daily migrations, so where you find baitfish, you are likely to find walleye. A depthfinder can be of great assistance in this endeavor, easily locating a school of baitfish that you can follow throughout the day. Some of these tools can also help you identify the transitions between types of floor in the body of water, allowing you to target the ridges where walleye are bound to be resting.

Walleye fishing techniques also take into account the weather on any given day of fishing. If you are fishing a flat, try to do so facing into the wind because the wind helps hold the fish in place by directing the current of the water in the same orientation. Therefore, they cannot idly fall over a ridge into deeper water and will be easily targeted in the small prison that you've created from the other side. Also, walleye don't like brilliant, bright, hot light like the sun and will stay further towards the bottom or, especially on a sunny day, you should be targeting shaded and shadowy areas to find walleye.