# Walleye Fall Bite Understanding



## louisvillefisherman (Jun 9, 2012)

Everywhere I read about the fall bite, it says it is the best fishing of the year, particularly walleye, which is what I target.

But for the life of me, I cannot seem to get it figured out, therefor it becomes the toughest time of year for me.

The patterns change, I get that. But is there some basic rules that I can start with to try and get back on the cool water track?

My biggest challenge, and the most obvious, where are the fish?

All of my normal spots are bare. Where I would normally mark fish I see none, or few at best. 

Particularly Milton, where I believe I have a decent understanding of the spring/summer pattern. But once that water cools, I cannot buy a fish, even on my finder, never mind my hook. Yet, I read it should be the opposite. The fish are supposedly hungry and are looking to fatten up for winter. Just not from me, lol!

I am guessing that somewhere, in some corner of the lake there must be a stack of fish so high I could scoop them up, because they sure as heck ain't where they are when its warmer.

Do the fish go extra deep when the water cools and feed? Or do they go shallow to try and get some sun to warm their bodies and feed?

I know that blades work better in cooler water, but do suspended fish in the middle of the lake eat? I have a wide variety of colors and sizes, but not sure where the best place to work them at. Shallow, deep, current, etc..

Most walleye I catch are feeding in the shallows or on the points and I troll right over and hook them up. But in the fall those areas are blank for me.

Do the walleye migrate towards the dam outflow because of the dropping level and higher current from increased flow?

Or do the walleye go to the opposite end of a dropping lake (as in up the river or into the shallows) to escape the drain?

I am hoping to spark an educational discussion on the differences between summer and fall fishing and not asking for spots, just experience.


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## musky 44 (Jul 16, 2013)

Well put! I too have all the same questions!


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## ballast (Sep 15, 2011)

I have heard of a night bite off the causeway, I tried it and caught a crappie my buddy got a 14 3/4 eye. But we lost 30$ in lures.(Milton)


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## shroomhunter (Aug 6, 2004)

Find the bait find the fish! Wherever the shad are concentrated you will find fish feeding on them. Shallow would be my first choice now until just before ice on but the key is finding the baitfish, watch for diving seagulls.


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## Erieangler51 (Sep 24, 2012)

I pick out a main starting point for the day and work from there. I get to my starting point and start searching for fish/baitfish. Walleyes are always around baitfish in the fall. Trying to beef up for the winter. If I see them suspended I troll cranks above them a few feet. If on bottom I like to jig with a minnow or lindy rig. Walleyes can be tricky in the fall. Heading out tomorrow to mosquito with f2w and hopefully will get on them. 


Posted using Outdoor Hub Campfire


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## louisvillefisherman (Jun 9, 2012)

The bait fish seems to be the key from everyone's kind replies.

I have been using the auto-mode feature on my old 1991 (year) Hummingbird which I am beginning to suspect is where my weakness might be. It is not showing me bait balls, instead I see a picture (icon) of a fish on the screen at the depth it was detected.

The reason I like automode is for the fish alarm..I can troll while listening to the beeps that alert me to fish under the boat. I really am thinking that I am passing bait balls and it is indicating it as just another single fish.

I am slightly familiar with the raw image where the fish appear as "nike swooshes" (you know, the shoe logo). Maybe that is what I need to start using instead of the lazy feature.


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## buck.eyehunter (May 27, 2007)

Definitely look for bait, and use the aches on your graph you will see more detail always pay attention to the thickness of the arch that will tell the size of fish not the length of the mark that is speed that is passes under transducer. Bait will looks like a cloud without definite marks.

Look in places that have sharper breaks on the shore lines or drops off quicker off of shore. Cast shore lines, a lot of the fish could be with one a few feet of shore.
Fall is a good time of the year, patterns are tough sometimes and weather is another big factor too.
Good luck
bigeyezcharters.com


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## brw (Jun 27, 2011)

Louisville:
My general pattern is to start shallow casting bladebaits and work down the dropoffs from there. Believe it or not, most of my fall walleyes are caught anywhere from as shallow as 4 ft to about 18-20 ft tops. Sometimes they want it away from the boat, and other times they want it 'vertical," i.e jigging/ripping it right at the boat. If I'm sitting in 12-13 ft and casting shallow, I will maintain bottom contact, then rip it right at the boat, then start all over again. I don't waste my time in deeper than 20 ft. If I had to guess, the ave depth of fish I catch is 8-12 ft. Zero in on these depths, and sooner or later they will tell you what they want. And don't rule out weedbeds, even late in the fall, especially if you can find some clean weeds.


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## Rik (Feb 17, 2006)

Buck.eyehuntet x2,on inland lakes sharp drops into deeper water,they may be shallow but they are close to the deeper more stable water this time of year.Find those spots on map where deep water is close to shallow water.


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## TopCat (Sep 27, 2006)

Like everyone else has said, finding the baitfish is key. At Milton this fall we've had great success trolling diving cranks, usually Flicker Shads, along the edges of drop offs and along the river channel in 8 to 22 feet of water. We will usually troll the deep side of the mid-lake hump just south of the causeway, then follow the river channel all the way up to and just beyond the I-76 bridge. Most of our fish come when we mark bait balls, with the bulk of our fish caught between the hump and the area between the causeway and I-76 bridges. Many of these fish are suspended in about eight to 15 feet of water, though sometimes we're getting them right on the bottom, especially near the hump.


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## louisvillefisherman (Jun 9, 2012)

Thanks to everyone for the help. I have made major progress since I have posted this and I will share my experience here. But I will start a new reply to this message because it is gonna be wordy and I have a picture to attach.

I appreciate all of the advice, and it really does help. I have learned a lot just from this post about jigging and casting blades and especially about the bait. I never knew it was so important, but of course it makes perfect logical sense!

As far as blades go, I have a full set of sizes and colors but have not had much success. I suspect now that I am getting the hang of the bait search that may change.

BTW TopCat, you just described my trolling program at Milton to a tee, albeit I stop just before 76 and turn around and head back south all the way to the gazeebo and repeat. 

I would have limited out at Milton yesterday for sure had I not had to leave early to watch the Nascar race at Martinsville on TV. Got 6 total, 3 were 19", the other 3 juveniles. 

Kept the legals. I dont always keep fish, but when I do, I prefer cold water ones. (I typed that in my Dos Equis "Worlds Most Interesting Man" voice.)

Anyway I want to follow up this post with the game changing moment I had yesterday (at least for this amateur fisherman).


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## LJL96 (Oct 10, 2011)

Well now is the time to start fishing!!!!! The last week in a half its been on fire! pulled a limit this past sat. evening with a 23 1/2 and a 22incher. last night pulled 4 keepers with a 22incher in 2hrs of fishing. Last weekend was good as well. Most fish caught on blades I trolled for a little while last weekend and during the week but only pulled a few shorts. a buddy of mine did alright trolling though. The lake I fished was Milton!


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## louisvillefisherman (Jun 9, 2012)

One simple thing I just learned about finding the bait fish.

-> My finder has been lying to me. <-

What?! Tell me it is not so. Me and my finder have spent 100's of hours together and I just now learn it has been dishonest the whole time? 

Ok enough with the drama. Here is the scoop:

Most cheapo finders (I have a 1991 model year hummingbird) have a default AUTO MODE setting.

Auto mode is for us lazy beginners who want to see actual pictures of fish on our screens. You see, the data that is coming into your device from the water looks much like the weather radar picture you see on the news. Just a bunch of static and bloches of crap.

The computer inside your finder will take that raw data and generate an image that looks more like fish swimming in open water.

Now try to imagine our local weather man during a severe storm with tornado warnings and all. You know how it goes, they interrupt your favorite TV program to put of this big doppler radar picture that can pretty much show you each drop of water that falls on top of your house. They show a lot of detail, but that detail is VERY important in order to detect circulation, which is a precursor to a tornado. Sure it scares the bejezus out of ya, but its necessary.

Ok, now instead picture that weatherman erasing all of that detail and just taping a picture of a rain cloud (like they used to do in the old days) over top of your town and saying.. "Yep.. its raining!" or worse, putting a cutout of a tornado on instead and saying "somewhere is a bad day waiting to happen". You get the point.

That is what auto mode has been doing. It was taking that radar image of the fish and bait and turning it into a picture of a fish. Same deal...same consequence.

You see, turns out that raw data has SO MUCH more information than some idiot icon. Especially mine, which is using 22+ year old technology. For instance, I only have 3 difference sizes of fish icons. Large, Medium and Small. So not a lot of variety as far as descriptions go. Instead of the weatherman saying how much snow, he instead says, a little or a lot. Not a great forecast, and not a great fish finder mode.

So we turned OFF the AUTO MODE. 

There is a drawback to turning off the auto mode. I lose the fish alarm. The fish alarm beeps a series of beeps every time it marks a fish. 3 beeps for small, 4 for medium, 5 for large. To be honest, I really came to rely on that alarm. I could focus on my pulsing lines and on navigating while "listening" for the fish. But a small trade off for what I was missing.

When I turned off auto mode, it was as if some one just turned my 1950's black and white 10" console TV with rabbit ears into a LCD 65" 1080p HDTV with all the cable channels. Seriously, it was that dramatic.

Granted, it is a little overwhelming at first. The top of the water is a little more noisy as well as the bottom, but I think I can tinker with the power/filer settings to clean that up, or invest in a new device. But the idea still remains.

And before you know it, what did I see? The HUGE clouds began to appear in the middle of the water column. They had remarkable shapes to them. Why have I never seen these before? Auto mode and my deceptive finder.

After I spent a good part of the morning exploring this newly found tidbit, I decided to switch auto mode back on and go over those areas again. What I saw made me shake my head in disbelief. 

Those big bait balls, if they were detected (some wern't) were being represented as maybe 2, 3 small and medium fish. Wow. I have been passing them up all along.

With auto mode OFF, not only could I see those bait balls (some were not even balls but long stretches of thick walleye buffets) but I could see the larger fish holding off to the bottom and side FEEDING on them! WOW!

I am attaching a simulated picture of what I saw (this is not an actual screen shot but it looks exactly like what I was seeing). If you look close you will see the marks at the bottom of the ball sitting there with bibs on. munch munch munch.

Then look at the picture with auto mode on. Tell me, which of those pictures tells the better story. Hell, there IS NO STORY, and that was the problem with auto mode.

You can take one look at that raw image and know exactly what is going on. Like where the larger predators are staging before they strike into the ball. Mounds of valuable information right on your screen for the viewing. (still shaking head as I write this) 

Wow. The lake just became the Garden of Eden and I just bit the apple.

If it wasn't for this forum, I would never had considered looking in that direction. 

I hope this can help someone else like it helped me.

Thanks to all.


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## FAB (May 26, 2013)

Great post with much helpful information. Just like the computers we work with everyday our electronics on board can usually do much more than we ask them to do. 

Thanks much Louisville.


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## allyfisher (Jan 9, 2013)

I will need to try that. The last couple times I have been on Milton there were bait fish everywhere popping the surface.


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## bdawg (Apr 14, 2009)

Ya know what I learned from this thread?

I need to buy a fish finder! I can only see the bait if it's on the surface! 

I want to fish for walleyes more, but don't have much confidence fishing deep water without knowing what's down there.


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## ballast (Sep 15, 2011)

Stopped by the causeway at Berlin right before dark and it was a feeding frenzy fish breaking surface every where and all I had was spillway gear (tandem rig 1/16 jig & small gulp minnow) my buddy had a bobber it was the 1st time I've seen a double on a tandem rig out side of Erie perch n small crappie's, further from shore there was some big uns busting surface. I love the pictures of the fish finder coolest thing I've read on here in a long time.


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## All Eyes (Jul 28, 2004)

Not to sound like Captain Obvious, but one thing to keep in mind is that it's much harder to rely on your fish finder when they move shallow like they do in the fall. Eyes can be caught in literally 2 ft of water this time of year. Mostly at night or during low light hours. If you are fishing in 10 ft, your cone angle is reduced to nothing and fish scatter when you move over top of them. Also, when fish are laying on bottom they don't leave a mark most times anyways. Especially true for saugeye. They tend to really hug the bottom.


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## allyfisher (Jan 9, 2013)

ballast said:


> Stopped by the causeway at Berlin right before dark and it was a feeding frenzy fish breaking surface every where and all I had was spillway gear (tandem rig 1/16 jig & small gulp minnow) my buddy had a bobber it was the 1st time I've seen a double on a tandem rig out side of Erie perch n small crappie's, further from shore there was some big uns busting surface. I love the pictures of the fish finder coolest thing I've read on here in a long time.


What was the double? White bass?


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## tehsavage (Aug 16, 2013)

There's much to be said for a good pair of polarized sunglasses. You'd be amazed what you can see in the water.


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## saugeyesam (Apr 20, 2004)

All Eyes said:


> Not to sound like Captain Obvious, but one thing to keep in mind is that it's much harder to rely on your fish finder when they move shallow like they do in the fall. Eyes can be caught in literally 2 ft of water this time of year. Mostly at night or during low light hours. If you are fishing in 10 ft, your cone angle is reduced to nothing and fish scatter when you move over top of them. Also, when fish are laying on bottom they don't leave a mark most times anyways. Especially true for saugeye. They tend to really hug the bottom.


Oh how true this statement is when it comes to the Saugeye. Because from my experience I have NEVER caught a Saugeye suspended in mid water column. They are extremely bottom oriented and the only thing I use my sonar for is following bottom contours and keeping track of water depth, hell most times when I'm fishing lakes like Atwood where I have spent so many hours fishing it I could probably navigate it blindfolded I sometimes don't even turn the sonar on. You REALLY have to fine tune and fiddle with your sensitivity settings on most of the mid to low priced sonar units in order to pick up Saugeye that are virtually glued to the bottom. and like ALLEYES said most times you're in such shallow water that using your electronics is a mute point. I have picked up fish at Atwood in water so shallow that I had to adjust the depth of my electric motor so that it was barely under water enough to work properly and adjust the trim on the out board so that the motor was completely out of the water. 

As for finding fish this time of year I agree with everyone else in that once you find the bait most likely your predators will be near by. My experience has been that most of the places I find baitfish this time of year are around heavily rocky areas or areas where there are significant weedbeds, it's experience that these areas seemed to have had a slight difference in water temperature this time of year, sometimes it may only be as minute as one degree in difference but if you pay attention to that you'll notice that if main lake temps are say 50 degrees and you find a rocky point or maybe a significant weed bed the water temp might be 52 or 53 degrees maybe even a little higher if there is abundant sunlight. The slight increase in temp makes a huge difference where baitfish are concerned and that in turn makes a difference when it comes to your target species. I have scores of notes going clear back to 1996 all pertaining to Walleye/Saugeye on the inland lakes/rivers. I recorded everything from the actual date, time of day, weather, water conditions, air temp, water temp, ect. ect. I could probably write a freaking book with all the notes I've taken over the years.


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## ballast (Sep 15, 2011)

The doubles were 8in crappie. I didn't need glasses to see the shad (baitfish) driven into the rocks at my feet,probably would have made it cooler. But yes, I've been ripping vibe through the schools were we snag the shad and still no luck with the eyes. Missing a major factor in this equation.


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## funkyfisher (Aug 2, 2011)

Once fall comes around I usually trade the boat for waders. I usually do pretty good wading in probably 4 to 4 1/2 feet of water. I have good luck with gold or firetiger jigs with a nice fat minnow, and rapalas after dark. I usually fish the windswept side of the lake where the chop is best. If its a cloudy day, it seems I do best in mid to late afternoon, if its sunny, right before dark. Many times I will notice at night while shining my light in the water just how many minnows are piled up in 2 or 3 feet of water. It sounds as though your mostly boat fishing, but if your not picking any up in your usual areas going shallow might give you the results your looking for. I've had some really good days and caught some hogs at Mosquito in the last few weeks wading in the shallows. Best of luck and happy fishing!!!!!


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## saugeyesam (Apr 20, 2004)

funkyfisher said:


> Once fall comes around I usually trade the boat for waders. I usually do pretty good wading in probably 4 to 4 1/2 feet of water. I have good luck with gold or firetiger jigs with a nice fat minnow, and rapalas after dark. I usually fish the windswept side of the lake where the chop is best. If its a cloudy day, it seems I do best in mid to late afternoon, if its sunny, right before dark. Many times I will notice at night while shining my light in the water just how many minnows are piled up in 2 or 3 feet of water. It sounds as though your mostly boat fishing, but if your not picking any up in your usual areas going shallow might give you the results your looking for. I've had some really good days and caught some hogs at Mosquito in the last few weeks wading in the shallows. Best of luck and happy fishing!!!!!


Funkyfisher brings up another good point about fishing this time of year. And that's the possibility of going it on foot by wading. Once bow season comes in my boat gets put away for the winter and when I decide to sneak a trip for eyes in between days of hunting I wade. Usually I try and fish rocky stretches of shoreline that hold bridge abutments or maybe a small feeder creek. Late evening and the first two hours after dark before the moon is all the way up have produced my best results. I prefer casting HJ13's in chrome/blue or clown pattern Or Hot-N-Tots in orange/white or chrome/purple parallel to the shore line or along points that drop into deeper water. Hopkins spoons in plain chrome work well to as does the standard jig/twister tipped with about a 1 to 2 inch piece of night crawler all produce well. The trick to fishing the jig is to use a heavy enough jig that it sinks relatively quickly. I prefer 1/8 to 1/4 oz pink white or chartruese jigs with either a white or chartruese twister tail. And I cast the jig in a fan pattern starting parallel to shore and retrieving it as slow as my patience allows and then I slow it down some more. I adjust and every cast I cast a degree or two further out and just keep working in a clockwise direction going from my left to my right Starting with my first cast parallel to the shore on my left working around to my last cast being parallel to the shore on my right. And I continue this until i either hook up with a fish or cover the entire radius from my left to right (I'm left handed so you righties would probably start on your right and work to your left) One I cover that section from left to right I move down the shore about a good cast length then I start again ending with my last cast overlapping into the section of water i just covered. I know it seem meticulous and brutally boring to fish this way but I am there to catch fish so I put in the time and it works.


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## koonzie99 (Apr 25, 2012)

Good info here guys thank you. Im planing on doing some night time eye fishing this weekend after im done hunting all day.


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## louisvillefisherman (Jun 9, 2012)

I spent 10 hours on Milton yesterday. Water is getting low. Millers launch will only be usable for another week before it is high and dry.

Now that I can see the bait fish, I had a fun time tracking them around the lake. It was interesting to observe how much they migrate through out the day. The places I found the balls in the morning were not the same place that I found them in the evening.

I caught several eyes, but they didn't come until 4 hours in, and even then it wasn't until the wind (which was about 2 mph most of the day) picked up into a small ripple. And then the bigger fish came as the sun got lower. 

The coolest part is each one was caught right around the bait balls. Man, this changes everything.

This thread really upped my game. 

Unfortunately my season is winding down, I may be out one more time before ice up, but the 2 trips a week has come to an end until spring. (stuff around the house has been neglected for fishing and it needs taken care of before winter)

Thanks to all! OGF is the best!


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## bountyhunter (Apr 28, 2004)

I talked to you as you were geting ready to go south under the bridge about 4;30 [I was in the blue white lowe , didn,t no it was you till I got back to the dock.] my next trip it will be late going out at 5pm. headed to mos now.


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## louisvillefisherman (Jun 9, 2012)

Well Hello to you! Yup that was me, I remember talking to you! Right after I talked to you was when things picked up a bit. 

Good luck at skeeter!


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## allyfisher (Jan 9, 2013)

Just curious, what were you using to fish under the bait ball?


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## louisvillefisherman (Jun 9, 2012)

I was trolling cranks at a depth just under the bait. The bait was usually in 10-12 fow suspended between 3 and 8 feet, so I ran at about 9-10 feet give or take. I was running at 1.8 mph.


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## All Eyes (Jul 28, 2004)

Good thread here Louisvillefisherman! And I know what you mean regarding the "auto" mode on your electronics. It took me forever to make this discovery on my original Eagle that came with my boat when I got it. A submerged log or even weed beds would show up as a row of fish. Noise and surface or submerged clutter also marked as fish. It sure helps the confidence factor when you know what you are targeting and put it all together. If you are like me, this will sit with you all winter and you will be very itchy to get back out there come spring. 
How cool is it to mark bait balls and see big arches right under them? It changes everything when you know those fish are active and feeding. The next challenge is staying with the bait as they move or the wind is pushing you off course. I find it almost impossible at times and it can be very frustrating. Yet at the same time, a part of me is glad that catching walleye isn't easy. It wouldn't feel nearly as rewarding when you catch them.
Again-great read with very helpful info. Thanks for posting! John


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## louisvillefisherman (Jun 9, 2012)

All Eyes,

You are so right. Seeing those bait balls with the marks under them is extremely encouraging. 

And you hit it right on the head about getting itchy about spring knowing that I have some new knowledge. It is as if you are reading my mind.

I know what you mean about staying with them. When I decided to use a blade I tried several methods to stay with them. Bow mount trolling motor seemed to work the best but i found it a challenge to work the pedal, fish and keep my eye on the chart. Eventually I just kept my eye on the surface and you could seem them breaking and I would cast into the area. Didn't hook any but the practice was welcomed. 

As a troller however staying with them is different. By definition I will be trolling into and out of the school. I just try to make that pass through the school as long and as effective as possible considering sharp turns and corrections while trolling creates crossed lines and fouled hooks.

I do plan on getting out maybe one more time this year, perhaps mid Nov. at Berlin because I want to get the motor warm and run some sea-foam through it in preparation for the 4 month off season. I rarely throttle up my motor because I troll 99% of its operating time, so she needs exercised.


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## TopCat (Sep 27, 2006)

Excellent thread. Lots of good info about walleye and saugeye.


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## TopCat (Sep 27, 2006)

saugeyesam said:


> Oh how true this statement is when it comes to the Saugeye. Because from my experience I have NEVER caught a Saugeye suspended in mid water column. They are extremely bottom oriented and the only thing I use my sonar for is following bottom contours and keeping track of water depth, hell most times when I'm fishing lakes like Atwood where I have spent so many hours fishing it I could probably navigate it blindfolded I sometimes don't even turn the sonar on. You REALLY have to fine tune and fiddle with your sensitivity settings on most of the mid to low priced sonar units in order to pick up Saugeye that are virtually glued to the bottom. and like ALLEYES said most times you're in such shallow water that using your electronics is a mute point. I have picked up fish at Atwood in water so shallow that I had to adjust the depth of my electric motor so that it was barely under water enough to work properly and adjust the trim on the out board so that the motor was completely out of the water.
> 
> As for finding fish this time of year I agree with everyone else in that once you find the bait most likely your predators will be near by. My experience has been that most of the places I find baitfish this time of year are around heavily rocky areas or areas where there are significant weedbeds, it's experience that these areas seemed to have had a slight difference in water temperature this time of year, sometimes it may only be as minute as one degree in difference but if you pay attention to that you'll notice that if main lake temps are say 50 degrees and you find a rocky point or maybe a significant weed bed the water temp might be 52 or 53 degrees maybe even a little higher if there is abundant sunlight. The slight increase in temp makes a huge difference where baitfish are concerned and that in turn makes a difference when it comes to your target species. I have scores of notes going clear back to 1996 all pertaining to Walleye/Saugeye on the inland lakes/rivers. I recorded everything from the actual date, time of day, weather, water conditions, air temp, water temp, ect. ect. I could probably write a freaking book with all the notes I've taken over the years.


Sam, I fish Pleasant Hill a lot for saugeye, and you're right the program is completely different. They never suspend. I'm always fishing right on the bottom and if my bait is not having some sort of contact with the bottom I'm usually not catching fish. 

The only place I've ever seen saugeye suspend is the remnant schools on the Portage Lakes. They don't stock them in there anymore. These are fish that were stocked like five to seven years ago, and they are big. I don't know if their size has anything to do with it. We'll find them through the summer suspended at about 15 feet in 30 feet of water. I suspect it's the forage they prefer, but I'm not sure.


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## Slimshady1 (Jun 28, 2013)

For more tips on how to fine tune your electronics, Google "Sonar Doctor" and check out his web-page. Lots of good info with sample screen-shots, etc. For example, I was having a hard time finding fish at higher speeds with my Lowrance HDS-10. It would be fine at slow speeds, but not show anything above 5 mph or so. I found out that I needed to change the frequency (ping speed) to the highest setting when searching for fish (200hz in my case) and all of a sudden they were there. Not hooks like when you are going slow, however, short vertical lines. Now I can mark fish at 30-40 mph out in Lake Erie, which is very handy when you might be planning to make a 10 mile run and you see lots of marks on your way out. I have stumbled across some "gold-mines" of walleyes that way.

Someone mentioned not being able to mark fish when they are right on the bottom, and that is certainly true with most black and white units. However, with the newer color units, fish on the bottom show up as a bright orange spot against the darker red bottom. Works great when I fish the Detroit River in the spring. After using the color ones, it is hard to go back to black and white. 

The newer units are also incredibly sensitive. Out on lake erie this summer, I was able to see my in-line sinkers on the screen when I had them in my front rod holders. Made it very easy to know how deep they were running. We also fish for Steelhead on the CAN side out of Wheatley and we run down-riggers with free-sliders. We always assumed that the sliders would run about half-way down, however, that is not the case. We could actually see them on the screen, about 2/3s of the way down. So if the cannon ball was at 45 feet, the slider would be down around 30 or so. 

I can't even imagine fishing Lake Erie without a good fish finder and GPS mapping system. It is just amazing how good these units are now days.


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