Fishing Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques inclu ...

for

walleye The walleye (''Sander vitreus'', synonym ''Stizostedion vitreum''), also called the yellow pike or yellow pickerel, is a freshwater perciform fish native to most of Canada and to the Northern United States. It is a North American close relat ...

is a popular sport with anglers. The current

IGFA The International Game Fish Association (''IGFA'') is the leading authority on angling pursuits and the keeper of the most current World Record fishing catches by fish categories. Fishermen who are sport fishers are careful to follow their strin ...

all tackle record is 11.34 kilograms (25 lb 0 oz), caught on August 2, 1960 in

Old Hickory Lake Old Hickory Lake is a reservoir in north central Tennessee. It is formed by the Old Hickory Lock and Dam (), located on the Cumberland River at mile 216.2 in Sumner and Davidson counties, approximately upstream from Nashville. The city ...

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

.''All Tackle Record for Walleye''

International Game Fish Association The International Game Fish Association (''IGFA'') is the leading authority on angling pursuits and the keeper of the most current World Record fishing catches by fish categories. Fishermen who are sport fishers are careful to follow their string ...

(IGFA). The sport is regulated by most natural resource agencies.

Management Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a Government agency, government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includ ...

may include the use of quotas and length limits to ensure that populations are not

over-exploited Overexploitation, also called overharvesting, refers to harvesting a renewable resource to the point of diminishing returns. Continued overexploitation can lead to the destruction of the resource, as it will be unable to replenish. The term ap ...

. As one example, in the state of

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

, walleye of under 15" may not be legally kept, except from Lake St. Clair, Saginaw Bay and the

St. Clair River The St. Clair River (french: Rivière Sainte-Claire) is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed November 7, 2011 river in central North America which flows from Lake Huron int ...

, where walleye of 13" are legal to take. Many states also issue slot regulations on walleye. This is where you can keep fish below a certain size and others above. The

slot limit A slot limit is a tool used by fisheries managers to regulate the size of fish that can legally be harvested from particular bodies of water. Usually set by state fish and game departments, the protected slot limit prohibits the harvest of fish wher ...

protects the medium-sized fish, which can be considered to be at prime sexual maturity.

Characteristics

Since walleyes have excellent visual acuity under low illumination levels, they tend to feed more extensively at dawn and dusk, on cloudy or overcast days and under choppy conditions when light penetration into the water column is disrupted. Although anglers interpret this as light avoidance, it is merely an expression of the walleye's competitive advantage over its prey under those conditions. Similarly, in darkly stained or

turbid Turbidity is the cloudiness or haziness of a fluid caused by large numbers of individual particles that are generally invisible to the naked eye, similar to smoke in air. The measurement of turbidity is a key test of water quality. Fluids can ...

waters, walleye tend to feed throughout the day. "Walleye chop" is a term used by walleye anglers for rough water typically with winds of 5 to 15 mph (7 to 24 km/h), and is one of the indicators for good walleye fishing due to the walleye's increased feeding activity during such conditions. In sunny conditions walleye move in

schools A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compulsor ...

to deeper shady areas, so when one walleye is caught there are usually other walleye feeding in the same location. These schools usually contain walleye of similar age and size.

Bait

Casting Casting is a manufacturing process in which a liquid material is usually poured into a mold, which contains a hollow cavity of the desired shape, and then allowed to solidify. The solidified part is also known as a ''casting'', which is ejected ...

trolling In slang, a troll is a person who posts or makes inflammatory, insincere, digressive, extraneous, or off-topic messages online (such as in social media, a newsgroup, a forum, a chat room, a online video game), or in real life, with the i ...

with spinners or minnow-imitating plugs is a good bet. Special worm harness rigs of spinners and beads are often trolled.

Jigs The jig ( ga, port, gd, port-cruinn) is a form of lively folk dance in compound metre, as well as the accompanying dance tune. It is most associated with Irish music and dance. It first gained popularity in 16th-century Ireland and parts of ...

, either traditional bucktails, or tipped with any of the modern plastics, a piece of worm or minnow are walleye angling favorites. Spoons are also good. Live baits are often still-fished, drifted or trolled on slip-sinker or "bottom-bouncing" rigs. Excellent live bait choices are nightcrawlers,

minnows Minnow is the common name for a number of species of small freshwater fish, belonging to several genera of the families Cyprinidae and Leuciscidae. They are also known in Ireland as pinkeens. Smaller fish in the subfamily Leusciscidae are ...

, or

leeches Leeches are segmented parasitic or predatory worms that comprise the subclass Hirudinea within the phylum Annelida. They are closely related to the oligochaetes, which include the earthworm, and like them have soft, muscular segmented bo ...

, all of which can be used on a jig. In springtime walleye will take almost any bait or lure, but may be more challenging to catch through the summer months because forage like

mayflies Mayflies (also known as shadflies or fishflies in Canada and the upper Midwestern United States, as Canadian soldiers in the American Great Lakes region, and as up-winged flies in the United Kingdom) are aquatic insects belonging to the order ...

are abundant. Fall often brings another peak of walleye feeding activity. Walleye are readily caught through the ice in winter, usually on jigs, jigging spoons or minnows. When ice fishing, walleye are caught jigging or on tip-ups. Tip-ups are generally set up with a dacron backing and a clear synthetic leader. For bait, the most common minnows are fatheads and shiners. Size for bait is anywhere from 1 to 7 inches. Walleye are not known for their fight in fish below about 24" in size. They fight well if over that size, however. Their wide appeal is partially the challenge in catching them, and partially their great popularity as a food fish.

References

Notes

* Sternberg, Dick (1999
''Successful Walleye Fishing''
Creative Publishing international.
''Walleye: Patterns & Presentations''
Creative Publishing International (2000). {{fisheries and fishing Recreational fishing