The fall walleye bite can be the hottest of the year. Here’s what you need to know about tactics, tackle and bait

EARLY FALL

When the water temperatures drop from their late-summer highs into the 14°C to 18°C range, deeper underwater weedbeds start to die off. As those weeds disappear, baitfish will seek out safety in the remaining healthy weedbeds, which are often found on shallow flats in less than 25 feet of water. When that happens, walleye will also start to congregate near the remaining shallow weedbeds, feeding heavily on the minnows and other aquatic creatures hiding in the diminishing cover.

TACTICS

When the baitfish are bunched up in weedbeds on shallow-water flats, I like to pull spinner rigs adjacent to the weeds. As soon as someone in the boat connects with a fish, I save a waypoint on my sonar unit. Then once we stop catching fish, I simply turn the boat around and keep working the area between the waypoints. This is often a very small zone, unlike in the late summer when the walleye are spread out and I have to troll long stretches of shoreline to catch them.

When the bite between my waypoints finally slows down, I then head to another weedbed, and fish it the same way. Over the course of a day, I may save a dozen waypoints for such prime areas, which I will return to again later in the season, as well as in years to come.

At this time of the year, I typically pull my spinner rigs at a trolling speed of one to 1.4 miles per hour. Sometimes, I’ll catch noticeably more fish when travelling in one direction over another. When that happens, I switch up my trolling patterns to fish primarily in the hot direction. Once I reach the end of the trolling area, I reel up and zip back to the start, rather than troll my way back to the first waypoint. This maximizes my fishing time, especially during the shorter fall days.

BAIT & TACKLE

During the early fall, I like to get the attention of walleye by giving my offerings more flash and vibration. To do that, I upsize my spinner blades from the size 4 Colorado blades I use in the summer to sizes 5 and 6. My top blade colours for this time of year are silver, white, brass, gold and perch, which replicate the minnows and smaller fish the walleye are feeding on.

As for bait, my go-to is a big leech. When fishing leeches in the summer, in fact, I set aside the largest ones and save them for the autumn. Many anglers don’t use leeches in colder water, finding they ball up instead of streaming out seductively. To avoid that, I fill up the livewell and put the container of big leeches in it as soon my boat is in the water. This helps the leeches acclimate to the cooler water and remain lively, so they won’t ball up when I hook them on my spinner rig.