# need a walleye 101 class



## oldwing (Jun 24, 2011)

I hate to admit it but at 61 yrs old I have never fished for eyes, mostly because I never learned how. I have read alot of your articles about the cumberland pool and I live close to it but nothing beats hands on experience. Would any of you gents mind teaching an old dog some new tricks? I am not looking for honeyholes I just want to learn. I would be willing to share some musky and pike lessons. I do happen to have a small creek on my property that I trap some nice minnows out of. Thanks for reading and thanks for all the great posts that I read.


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## senoy (Feb 3, 2013)

My beginner's advice to you to get started is jigs with minnows (you can also use Gulp minnows or twister tails. Real minnows will catch you more fish most of the time, but walleye are finicky beasts and there are days they won't look at a fathead and devour some cheapo piece of rubber. There are even days when they'll hit one species of minnow, but not another. They are very wary and persnickety eaters.) Relatively small jigs (I use most commonly 1/8 oz. chartreuse round heads.) Walleye don't strike like muskies, they flare their gills and 'suck' in food, too heavy of a jig and they wont suck hard enough to get it, stinger hooks can help with this problem. If you're on shore, you want to cast out, let it hit bottom and bounce it back to you (slowly in cold water, more quickly in warm.) If you're on a boat, you want to bounce it off the bottom right under your boat. Keep it within about a foot of the bottom. Fish around current breaks. Walleye are lazy and don't typically spend a lot of time in fast moving current, though at certain times of year they will hang out behind rocks below fast moving surface current. Fish them mostly in the fall and spring. Mostly at dawn and dusk. Typically, they're found deep and in the fall and spring right below dams or at the mouths of creeks within a few miles of dams. Use a light line or leader (I usually use 6# mono occasionally 8, but never more. Fluoro is useful because they hit very light at times, but fluoro drives me up the wall, so I'd rather miss fish than deal with that crap, but that's my own personal prejudice, some people love fluoro.) Best conditions are high, cloudy water. When they hit, 90% of the time you won't even feel it, it'll be on the fall of the jig and when you pull up, you'll feel a bit of weight almost like a snag and then set the hook and have fun. In the beginning, you'll catch the bottom of the river more often than you should, but you'll learn to figure out a hit and a snag after you have enough of them. There's my 30 second primer. If you follow those rules, you'll catch fish. Maybe not be the most proficient fisherman on the water and there will be days that this just doesn't work, but you'll get your share and this works on more days than it doesn't. There are lots of other variables and tactics, but almost everyone at some point uses a jig and minnow bounced in deep water near current breaks below dams.


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## lil goose (Oct 16, 2009)

senoy said:


> My beginner's advice to you to get started is jigs with minnows (you can also use Gulp minnows or twister tails. Real minnows will catch you more fish most of the time, but walleye are finicky beasts and there are days they won't look at a fathead and devour some cheapo piece of rubber. There are even days when they'll hit one species of minnow, but not another. They are very wary and persnickety eaters.) Relatively small jigs (I use most commonly 1/8 oz. chartreuse round heads.) Walleye don't strike like muskies, they flare their gills and 'suck' in food, too heavy of a jig and they wont suck hard enough to get it, stinger hooks can help with this problem. If you're on shore, you want to cast out, let it hit bottom and bounce it back to you (slowly in cold water, more quickly in warm.) If you're on a boat, you want to bounce it off the bottom right under your boat. Keep it within about a foot of the bottom. Fish around current breaks. Walleye are lazy and don't typically spend a lot of time in fast moving current, though at certain times of year they will hang out behind rocks below fast moving surface current. Fish them mostly in the fall and spring. Mostly at dawn and dusk. Typically, they're found deep and in the fall and spring right below dams or at the mouths of creeks within a few miles of dams. Use a light line or leader (I usually use 6# mono occasionally 8, but never more. Fluoro is useful because they hit very light at times, but fluoro drives me up the wall, so I'd rather miss fish than deal with that crap, but that's my own personal prejudice, some people love fluoro.) Best conditions are high, cloudy water. When they hit, 90% of the time you won't even feel it, it'll be on the fall of the jig and when you pull up, you'll feel a bit of weight almost like a snag and then set the hook and have fun. In the beginning, you'll catch the bottom of the river more often than you should, but you'll learn to figure out a hit and a snag after you have enough of them. There's my 30 second primer. If you follow those rules, you'll catch fish. Maybe not be the most proficient fisherman on the water and there will be days that this just doesn't work, but you'll get your share and this works on more days than it doesn't. There are lots of other variables and tactics, but almost everyone at some point uses a jig and minnow bounced in deep water near current breaks below dams.


Excellent advise Senoy!! If you live in lisbon just go down to stratton with some nice creek chubs 2-3 inchs and get them out on the bottom with either a floating jig head or just a regular hook and you will catch some walleye and sauger! You will have to deal with some snags but that is just part of it! If you can from march to may is the best! a little patience and persiverence and you will figure it out!! Good luck Goose


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## Doboy (Oct 13, 2008)

lil goose said:


> Excellent advise Senoy!! If you live in lisbon just go down to stratton with some nice creek chubs 2-3 inchs and get them out on the bottom with either a floating jig head or just a regular hook and you will catch some walleye and sauger! You will have to deal with some snags but that is just part of it! If you can from march to may is the best! a little patience and persiverence and you will figure it out!! Good luck Goose


Yep oldwing,,, ALL OF THE ABOVE! Right-on.
I'll just add,,, Below 40*water, fish SLOW,SLOW & SLOWER,,, With 'meat'.
45* up,,, You can start cranking the rubber again.
I'm kinda learning all over again, I do OK,,, 
One thing about the River Eyes,,,,
As soon as you THINK you got it down, IT WON'T WORK!!! 
*YOU SAY "I would be willing to share"
YOU GOT ACCESS TO LARGE FATHEADS???
ARE YOU OFF ANY, DURING THE WEEK? 
If So,,, I think we need to talk 
I go down 11, and Always have a seat open.*


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## snake69 (Sep 26, 2005)

I guess I don't need to add as you got some top notch advice in my opinion! The one thing I think differently on is the time. I generally start fishing the river from about late Oct/early Nov all the way into mid March. And it really gets pretty darn good the later in the year it gets!! The only reason I don't keep fishing past March is because we get the boats out and start fishing our "home" lake...Berlin. Anyhow, stop down to either side on the weekend and many of us will be there!!


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## Daveo76 (Apr 14, 2004)

You can have some luck drifting or jigging lead spoons too. 2 oz worked well for us at Greenup. We have a nice wlkway where we can do both. Pretty lazy standing there jigging a spoon up and down!!


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## eyecontact (Jul 23, 2012)

If you have some time for reading, there is really good insights offered in the book Walleye Wisdom- An In-Fisherman Handbook of Strategies. It's 250 pages of walleye wisdom. Good luck.
Eyecontact


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## oldwing (Jun 24, 2011)

Thanks for all the replys to my post. early March I will try to sneak in some vacation time and head down to the river and look some of you up. I got a PM and figured out how to read it now I need the grandkids to show me how to reply to it. Joe, I will give you a call and see what we can set up. I have a small flatbottom with a 9.9 merc on it ,but I read one post that sounded like my boat is a bit small for the river. Looking forward to meeting some of you.


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## Doboy (Oct 13, 2008)

oldwing,,, hang in there,,, it's getting close. No need to get excited until all the ice is out of the feeder creeks.
BTW, How old is your wing???


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## oldwing (Jun 24, 2011)

Doboy, I got a 77 wing all dressed up. I use one saddlebag as a livewell and the other to keep my beverages cold just to balance it out.


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## Doboy (Oct 13, 2008)

oldwing said:


> Doboy, I got a 77 wing all dressed up. I use one saddlebag as a livewell and the other to keep my beverages cold just to balance it out.


Oh LMAO! That's GREAT!!
Now all you need is a trailer thingie to 'tag-a-long' a 32qt cooler for all those OR 'eyes'!
Mines an '88,,,, Lights, velvet & crap,,,,If I ever put bait in my bags my wifee would cut me OFF SHORT!!! 
But with the price of fuel,,, you gave me a great idea! I should build a long narrow trailer, and tow my sportspal canoe behind my Wing! Would that be a HOOT!? 44MPG! 
CU downthere.


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## chflnghair (Jan 8, 2013)

Watch this YouTube video here. I got this from a thread called "Question about fishing the Ohio River." on this same board. A guy by the name of "Doctor" posted this video showing how to catch sauger when you're tired of catching catfish. It shows this guy catching them left and right below a dam on an chartreuse colored 1/2 oz jig with a white twister tail grub and treble hook stinger and tipping the jig's hook with a shiner. I tried attaching the video here. I almost got it right. When I try to watch this video, it starts but the screen is almost a whiteout. Once I clicked on the full screen link in the bottom right of the video screen the whiteout disappears. Maybe some young whippersnapper here can show me where I went wrong! Enjoy!






I think one of the funny parts here is Doctor's user title is "Catfish and only Catfish", (Thanks Doc!). You can also see where the guy in the video, (not Doctor here), is more of a catfishermen than a walleye/sauger/saugeye die hard. I know I can do a better job of filleting these fish, the cheeks for example.


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## chflnghair (Jan 8, 2013)

Hey! I just now noticed after watching this video again there are some tall buildings in the background. Anybody here recognize them? It might be a tip where this hot spot is!


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