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Target Walleyes trolling at night this time of year
Fishing continues to be great this fall. FOX 9's Jared Piepenburg spoke with professional walleye fisherman Bill Shimota about how targeting walleyes up shallow and at night.
LAKE MINNETONKA, Minn. (FOX 9) - Shore fishing and trolling at night are ways to find walleyes late into the fall.
FOX 9's Jared Piepenburg spoke with Professional walleye fisherman Bill Shimota about targeting walleyes up shallow and at night.
We are moving into early November – can folks still expect good fishing?
Bill Shimota: It's definitely the time, right? I mean, I don't know if it's better than the spring, but I, it sure can be. Everybody likes to put the boats away and they like to get their hunting boots strapped on and get out in the woods, but man, if you're a fisherman, if you’re a serious fishermen, this is the time to be out there. There's no doubt. It usually starts to feel like fall when the kids start going back to school and stuff like that, but that's even a little early. It's like right now. This late October & November, so right now, and up until we get ice. This is the time to be out there. Obviously it's quiet out there and the fish are biting, I mean, what more do you want? Really? Other than maybe to be a little warmer, but other than that, it, it it's the time for sure.
Are there certain baits to be throwing right now?
Shimota: Yeah, a little bit of everything and that is kind of what's cool about this time of year. You definitely do start using minnows a lot more. You can just jig a fathead, but also your big minnows too, like your creek chubs and your sucker minnows -- those really start to shine and also those really big baits, the four or five six inch baits. They seem big on the end of your line, but that's nothing for a big walleye to eat. You’ll even see the big forage they’ll cough up in the livewell. You'll see these big tullibee or sunfish or whatever it might be. They eat some big things this time of year, because there isn't a lot a little bait out there. All their forages have been growing up throughout the year. These fish are putting on the feed bag. So they want a bigger bait. So live bait, definitely.
Like I said, it seems to be more of a minnow bite this time of year, but I'm always going to be using artificial when I can. I don't think you can beat trolling a crank bait around this time of year. Day or night. It's just one of the easiest ways to cover water. Just throw it out the back of the boat and drag it around. You don't need to get fancy. You can, of course. A lot of guys will use the line counters and the planer boards and things like that. That's a great way to do it. But the easiest way to do it, really, is just put it on a spinning rod, throw it out the back of the boat and start going. And you'd be surprised at how many fish you'll catch! Not just walleyes, but you're going to run into bigger pan fish. You're going to to run into northerns, of course, bass. And it's just a really fun way to cover water. Throw that crank bait on and drag it around.
Are there certain areas to target walleyes right now?
Shimota: Yep, yep, absolutely. You want to really focus on the shallow water this time of year, especially in the mornings and the evenings and the course after dark. Seems like the fish, when they get into a feeding mood like this, they're going to move up shallow, shallow rock, shallow weeds. Weeds are always a place to look, for walleye, especially the big ones. Weeds can be a little harder to troll around and fish around, but the walleyes are in there. There's no question that the weeds are full of walleyes. That's where they live. A lot of the weeds will die off this time of year. So that actually makes it a little easier to fish around them. So try around shallow cover and shallow rock points.
A really big thing this time here too, I think is finding moving water. If you’ve got a channel between two lakes, usually you'll get a little current going through there. Or if you've got a feeder stream coming into a lake, or even if you have got one that's leaving the lake, that creates current as the water is going out also. That current is just a magnet for walleyes in the fall. And, a lot of it is because there's bait that'll go there. And then you get the whole food chain and the walleyes use it as a feeding opportunity. They can just sit there and, and there's bait forage moving by at all times. And so if you can find a creek coming in, or like I said, a channel between two lakes -- look for that moving water and don't forget to fish shallow.
You were in an episode of the TV Show, The Next Bite, trolling at night in the Twin Cities. You really got into them!
Shimota: Yeah, yeah, that was a lot of fun. We were trolling around the Berkeley hit stick that time and it was unbelievable. There is a mentality thinking I'm going to spook the walleyes trolling over them in that shallow water. You have got to throw all that away, especially at night. We were trolling super shallow water, super tight channels and they were just absolutely crushing those baits and they weren't even all that far behind the boat. So nighttime is the right time for sure!
Obviously it's already cold to begin with and then it gets even colder at night. But if you can stand it out there and do some night trolling, it can be one of the craziest bites you've seen all year. You're looking for water that's only, we'll say less than 10 feet. And if you are trolling in five, six, seven feet of water, that's plenty deep. You're not going to spook the fish too bad at night. They're used to it.
You just throw out your stick bait and hold onto it. And... If you feel it hitting the bottom too much, you just simply reel it in a little bit. It just brings that bait up a little higher. Or if you're never touching the bottom, just let a little bit more line out, maybe get down there a little deeper. And the big thing with that, that kind of trolling -- don't just set it in the rod holder and wait. I like to keep that rod in my hand and I'm constantly doing something with it. You're changing your cadence. Whether it's popping it quick or just like slow surges forward and back. If you can imagine that bait going, I always try to picture a big walleye is right behind the lure all the time, no matter where I am. And just so you're picturing that fish right behind your bait, make it stop quick. And all of a sudden that bait will run right into the fish or the fish will run right into the bait. And a lot of times that just triggers a bite, you know, or if you take it away from them quickly, that triggers a bite. So that's a big thing too. Don't get lazy and make sure you keep doing different things. Same thing when you're casting, And when you're casting that bait... Don't just reel it in straight. You're doing surges and stops and pumps and things like that. Make that bait do different things to try to trigger bites. And it's incredible how many more bites you'll get by doing it that way.
Can anglers still hook into some fish if they aren’t fishing from a boat?
Shimota: Oh gosh, absolutely. This is a great time to go offshore for several reasons. A lot of the fishing piers are quiet again. A lot of times you go out there in summer and they're full of people and then I think a big thing too is a lot of the weeds die off this time of year because a lot of the shore fishing spots are great but a lot of the times of the year you go to them and it's just all socked in with weeds and you can hardly even cast a lure in there. So you get a lot of the weeds dying off, there's fewer people, and obviously the fish are biting a little better.
And the one thing I like, I have a nice boat and everything, but I love just grabbing the kids and going and fishing off a dock somewhere. Because it's just so much easier. And the big thing is if you are cold or whatever, well just go sit in the car and warm up or go home or whatever you want. So shore fishing opportunities are great right now too. yeah. If you can find a bridge or under where a channel is going through, or if you can find where a river's dumping into a lake, I mean, that's a recipe for success for sure, for a shore fisherman. It’s definitely time to fish from shore more than all year, a hundred percent.
Do you think the next few weeks will feature some good fishing?
Shimota: I think so. Unfortunately, there is so much crammed into a few weeks here. If you're a hunter, if you're a deer hunter, the rut's kicking in. If you are a waterfall hunter, the migration is starting. And then also, of course, if you're serious fishermen, this is definitely the time to be out there, you know get a few more days out in the boat before ice up.
And another thing I'll tell you, too, if you ice fish some of these lakes around home, or wherever they might be, now is a great time to go out there with your boat and really look around. I laugh at all the times we've been out there drilling a hundred holes with the auger looking with the camera for weeds or looking for rocks. Well, you can go out in a boat and you can do all that in a matter of minutes. You can know where some of these little honey holes are that you might want to set your icehouse on. That’s just another little nugget to get out there and scope out some ice fishing spots. Because early ice for walleyes is definitely going to be one of the best times of the year to catch that seven, eight, nine, 10 pound fish. It is going to be on that early ice and don’t forget to look for weeds. I'm telling you the big fish are shallow. They're in the weeds and rocks. And, and that's where you're really going to want to look.