No Forward-Facing Sonar? Here’s How to Catch Late-Summer Walleyes the Traditional Way

Without a doubt, one of the most tenuous occupations one could ever consider is trying to squeak out a modest living as a walleye fishing guide.

Customers can be quite demanding, overhead expenses will eat you alive, and even the highest quality boating and fishing equipment can find itself victimized by gremlins that may cause it to break down without a moment’s notice. Then there is the weather, which is notorious for refusing to cooperate. Worse yet, because the best walleye fishing is primarily restricted to the Northern border states and the Canadian provinces, Mother Nature can be counted upon to give you a pink slip each and every November. No wonder most walleye guides have gray hair before they’re 40.

It should, consequently, come as no surprise that, if you’re going to “make it” in this business, nothing is more important than maintaining an earned reputation for consistently putting clients on fish. Here’s how ace guide Joe Zemnicki catches walleyes during the toughest time of the year — late summer. 

“Late summer, from July through September, is the toughest time of year to find walleyes,” says Zemnicki, a walleye guide out of Oak Harbor, Ohio. “Paradoxically, though, once you’ve located them, you can often catch your limit in as many casts.”

Tactics for Catching Late-Summer Walleyes, According to an Old-School Guide

The reason the fish are difficult to find is because they are tightly bunched up in schools in certain locations. Warmer temperatures have also driven them into much deeper water, or at least they’ve moved into areas where the water beneath them is much deeper. Unfortunately—for guides —this is a time of year when many people like to schedule their fishing vacations. If a guide can consistently provide walleyes during late summer, he’s virtually guaranteed heavy repeat business the following year.

This time of year, my bread-and-butter technique is finding suspended fish. Although I perfected my approach in the island-clustered region of Lake Erie’s western basin, it works well on any water.

The secret to locating suspended walleyes is using a flashing depth sounder or graph recorder in conjunction with some type of bottom contour map or an intimate knowledge of the lake floor. Although a school of walleyes may be hovering at almost any arbitrary mid-depth level, they nearly always seem to be relating to some much deeper structure on the bottom. Search for deeper reefs that have 18 to 25 feet of water over them, rock-lined depressions on otherwise continuous flats, winding river channels on the floors of man-made reservoirs, or even underwater saddles or ridges connecting midlake islands.

The value of using a depth sounder or chart recorder is not only being able to find which structure the fish are using but also to determine the exact depth level at which they’re suspending.

Invariably, I move quickly at first, coursing back and forth over a deep structure, searching for either pods of baitfish near the surface or the suspended walleyes themselves. You will almost always find the two together, with the walleyes almost directly beneath their forage so, if I see baitfish on my sonar but no walleyes, I immediately In the spring, there is one type of location where I can virtually guarantee any angler all the walleye action he wants* slow down and begin methodically scouring the region like a vacuum cleaner.

When I find a school of walleyes, the types of lures I use depend upon how deep the fish are suspending. If they’re deeper than 25 feet, I like to get right over them and vertically pump heavy jigging spoons up and down. If they’re 18 to 25 feet deep, I like to troll balsa minnows with weights on the lines to take them down. If the fish are suspending at 10 to 18 feet, casting deep-diving crankbaits usually pays off.

Read Next: The Best Walleye Lures: Proven Baits That Catch Keepers and Trophy Walters

Walleyes have a peculiar late-summer habit of suspending only five or six feet beneath the surface, although the water right there may actually be 30 feet deep or more. In a situation such as this, the looming shadow of the boat passing overhead has to be taken into account. It won’t necessarily spook the fish and make them panic and dive for deep water, but they will slowly swim out of the boat’s path to one side or the other.

Now is when I begin trolling shallowrunning minnow-type plugs with planing boards. These are inexpensive gizmos that you can buy in most tackle shops: They attach to your lines about eight feet ahead of your lures. When trolled slowly, they angle off sharply and track their own courses 20 yards or so to the right and left of your boat’s path, which places your lures in perfect position to be readily seen by shallow-suspending walleyes scooting out of the boat’s way.

As often as not, I’ll spot these shallow walleyes only briefly on my sonar and then they’ll quickly disappear from the screen. I know exactly what’s happening because, just a few seconds later, we’ll usually get strikes on one side of the boat or the other.” Grant Hughes, Cook, Minnesota “I own and operate Muskego Point Resort on Lake Vermilion, which is one of the state’s better producers of big walleyes.

Every year, we log many fish topping eight pounds. I also guide anglers on the many Boundary Water Canoe Area lakes. When it comes to catching walleyes during the fall months of September, October, and November, you can’t do any better than backtrolling with live baits.

The water temperature begins to cool rapidly, and this causes the body metabolisms of walleyes to begin winding down. Successfully catching walleyes hinges upon using live baits fished very slowly.

My pals Al and Ron Lindner of nearby Brainerd pioneered the art of backtrolling, but they relied primarily upon night crawlers for bait. I find this approach frustrating because panfish such as bluegills, perch, and rock bass will never leave a night crawler alone, so you have to change baits every few minutes. I much prefer using leeches and live minnows. They’re more durable baits.

Essentially, backtrolling means operating your craft in reverse gear with the broad transom pushing into the water, which serves to greatly retard the speed of the boat.

I recommend lightweight spinning tackle and an open-face reel filled with six-pound test line. Thread the line through a sliding sinker of appropriate weight—depending upon how deep you’re fishing. Then tie a tiny swivel to the end of the line. Next, tie a second length of monofilament (about six feet long) to the swivel and tie a No. 8 or No. 10 Aberdeen hook to the terminal end. The swivel not only keeps the line from twisting but prevents the sinker from sliding down to the hook. The hole in the sinker allows free travel of the line so you can feed slack to a fish that has picked up the bait without it feeling any resistance.

Now, open the bail of your spinning reel and allow slack line to take the rig to the bottom. Don’t close the reel’s bail, just curl the line around your index finger to hold it in place. Then, shift your outboard into reverse gear and begin trolling your bait slowly along the bottom.

Read Next: A Fishing Legend Explains How to Catch More Walleyes Without Forward-Facing Sonar

When a walleye hits, you may feel either a light peck or simply a bit of resistance as if you’ve snagged a weed. Depending upon the feeding mood of the fish on any given day, you’ll have to experiment to determine the best time to strike. When I feel the first fish of the day, I close the reel’s bail and strike immediately. If I miss that particular fish, I begin waiting longer. The next time, I’ll simply release my finger from the line and give the walleye a three-count before taking up the slack and striking. If that doesn’t work, I’ll give the next fish a six-count.

With the water beginning to rapidly cool, the walleyes are climbing out of their deep summer homes and are congregating on somewhat shallower structure such as submerged rock piles, reefs, along the edges of whatever weeds may still be green, and along the edges of drop-offs and underwater ledges. During the fall months, I find most of them at eight to 12 feet deep.

Walleyes are seldom found in massive schools at this time of year but, nevertheless, they like to keep company with others of their kind. So if you catch a fish in a particular location, don’t be too eager to leave until you’ve carefully worked the immediate area for at least another half-hour.

This story was originally published in the August 1985 Issue of Outdoor Life.