Walleye movements

[JLarochelle]

Hello everyone,

First I'd like the admins for allowing me to join the forum. My family has had a camp in the Bai Dorval area for a few years now and we've experienced decent success fishing for walleye and pike, occasionally catching the odd smallmouth. A neighbour told me last year that in late May and early June the walleye have not made it to our part of the lake yet (Bai Dorval, Bai Sandy Portage and Bai MacAdam). I was wondering if anyone had information on this and if I should target other species like lakers and whitefish since I marked fish on bottom at 50ft. Any info is appreciated, thanks!

[Ozzy30]

Welcome the forum, I am not real familiar with your end of the lake but what you will have to monitor in the spring is water temperature.  That is what dictates where the fish will be at certain time of the year, The lakers will even be up shallow in the spring, if the walleye are still moving the water temp will be closed and you could catch lakers up in 10 ftw.  Nothing more fun than casting for shallow lakers.  Enjoy the forum

[JLarochelle]

Thanks for the reply, I have a water temp feature on my Helix so I'll try to get familiar with that feature and maybe be able to track the fish better.

[reelpro]

Walleye will not typically travel huge distances to spawn. A few miles but not the length of a water body like Kipawa.

They don’t act like Salmon.

If there is a good current site with rock rubble they will spawn, I have found them spawning in very small creeks just a few feet wide, with just a small amount of current.

If there are no inflowing creeks or rivers within a few miles, they will usually spawn on rock shoals and points that top out in 2-8 feet .

Look for points and shoals that are usually pounded by wave action from prevailing winds, those will be best bets for spawning shoals.

Look for any inflows and shoals.  There will be some walleye still relating to those sites early in the year.  Depending on “spring opener” weather they may be still spawning, or be moved off to the nearest food flats and shallows, spring walleye are often in 1-3 fow feeding.

In any lake usually the major inflows will attract the biggest numbers of spawning fish so fishing success will the best near those inflows, as they are the “best” sites nearby, but there will always be other spawning sites in parts of the lake furthest away from the major inflows that will provide great spring action.

Start at the shoals, creeks, and work shorelines towards shallow flats, you will find them.

GL