Chautauqua Walleyes

[GRIZZ]

My toes are still thawing out because I just got back from 3 hours of night fishing for walleyes on Chautauqua Lake with it being 25 degrees out and 6 inches of snow on the ground. We had a good time though. I caught 9 walleyes and I think they were all 25 inches but 2. Heaviest one was a tad under 8lbs. It was a fat pig. One was 26 and the smallest was 23. My buddy John flubbed netting one that I believe was 27-28 inches. It was his first net of the season and he was kinda excited and caught the trebles in the net and the fish outside the net and the fish came off and dropped back in. GRR. John caught one walleye and a 42 inch muskie to boot on 8lb Berkley Maxx line we just got. Thats nice tough line. Its 2:45 am and he just called and want to go back out and get some more. Ugh, guess I'm headed back out for an hour. I just can't resist catching those sweet walleyes. He bribed me by saying he'll fillet all the fish and give me my fillets. Here's some pics. I tend to refrain from holding fish up in front of me because I'm so big it makes the nice fish look little.



John with his muskie.



Me



My big feet to give some perspective.

[speck chaser]

would you mind telling how you caught them

[willfish4food]

I bet he caught them right in the mouth.

[ShilohRed]

Not all that I need to know is when is dinner? Man that is going to be some great eating there.
I wish we had more of them here in the Tn river. WE catch a few each year while fishing for sauger.
Pete

[GRIZZ]

would you mind telling how you caught them

Sure - no problem.

Chautauqua is a shallow natural lake with lots of weeds so all the fall fishing we do for walleyes is done over weedbeds in the foot of water or so between the weeds and the surface, if we are lucky and the lake is high like it is this year. If it isn't high the excellent fall shore fishing is hard because the weeds are so bad. Conditions are excellent this year so hopefully there will be many pictures to come between now and when the lake freezes. They really put on the feedbag till the lake freezes.

Since we have to fish over the weeds where the walleyes are feeding this time of year we use floating rattling minnow stickbaits, preferably tough plastic because these big walleyes and muskies tear lures up pretty bad.
We mainly use 3 hook storm thundersticks in firetiger, natural perch, and minnow colors. Walleyes are picky like crappies and sometimes will only hit on one particular pattern and not the other, so its important to experiment.

Other baits we have done well with are floating shallow running cranks like bagley's small fry series in crappie and silver or gold shad, or just about any shallow floating minnow lure that will still wobble when retrieved very slowly. I mean sllooww. Casts that take several minutes to retrieve, and you have pay close attention because they very often taste the lures before really hit them. I often think I have caught a weed until I apply a little pressure and something pulls back. Later when it gets even colder it turns into surface fishing. You can hear the walleyes hitting bait on the surface and it sounds like someone snapping thier fingers. At that point we toss a lure out there and let it sit and just tug it enough to make the rattles make noise and they smack it right on the surface. This is usually just before the lake freezes and its really cold. Fishing that way is a blast, especially knowing that at any time it may be a muskie and not a walleye doing the smacking.

Basically, the method is casting as far as you can and retrieving the lure excruciatingly slowly, so slow that you can see a wake. Lures like yozuri's and diawa don't work well because they don't wobble when retrieved slowly. Mainly, we use very steady speeds because this time of year the fish sometimes follow the lure for a long time before hitting. Sometimes they follow right up to the end of the pole. Its makes for some exciting fishing when you never know if your gonna be staring a 30 inch walleye or a 50 inch muskie eye to eye when you pull you lure from the water.

One night about 8 yrs ago another friend of mine and me caught close to 300 walleyes and 10 muskies in one night. lol - no one believed us till we swore them to secrecy on thier childrens lives and took them with us for a night so they could see in person. One guy we sent home with 2 limits of walleyes with not one fish under 28 inches. We figured he had 50-60 lbs of filets. I also took a lot of pictures and even a 2 hour video once. On the video during the 2 hours I had a hit on every cast. I caught one 46 inch muskie, a 30 inch walleye and had a cast with 5 hits on it without hooking one of them. The fishing was crazy like that for about 4 years and then it slowed down to what it is now where we usually have a bunch of nights like we had last night, but never like it was then. We got so spoiled during those years. We really miss that now though we still catch some really nice fish now as you can see.

They often hit the lure in the air or just before it leaves the water at the end of the retrieve. Scares the crap out of you sometimes. Last night we had several hits like that right under our noses, a couple fish coming out of the water after baits that were nearly being cast again. Then again sometime they hit way out on the end of these long cast and we have to fight these big fish for the 120 feet or so of line we cast out this time of year. It make for some really fun and exciting fishing.

What you need to do to find fish like these this time of year is look for activity on the water because they are actively feeding before winter. Once you see activity you have to approach carefully because they are pretty spooky. Cast a long ways beyond the activity and pull the lure into them.

If your on a deeper lake with less weeds you won't need to worry about the shallow element as much, but the speed, location and bait elements will be the same except you'll be able to use deeper divers like glass shad raps, grappler shads, walley divers and such. Swimbaits work really well in deeper water too like northland mimic minows or slurpies swimbait or storm wildeye swimbaits in perch or minnow. You will still need to match the hatch so to speak, but the fishing should be pretty similar everywhere walleyes are feeding this time of year. Its very similar to fall crappie fishing at a bigger scale.

Look for fish at creek mouths, spillways, points, or outside canals where the fall baitfish are schooling and there is plenty of baitfish for them to feed on. The rule of thumb is if where the baitfish are you'll find walleyes. Even on a mediocre year I can fill half a freezer with walleye fillets with fish like this. Even the bigger fish taste as good as the smaller ones. I believe its because they feed on perch and crappies instead of shad and minnows (minners for you southern folks - and yes I know what minners means)

Hope this helps - Good luck

[speck chaser]

thanks for the detailed report i also fish for walleye at night but it is mainly n the early spring never tried the fall bite before will have to give that a try
keep them pictures coming also do you do any trolling for them

[GRIZZ]

Trolling has never appealed to me. I like casting and have always fished that way. Many people troll Chautauqua, and I'm sure there are catchable fish in the areas you can troll, but this time of year fewer fish are in those areas than are feeding in the shallows.

[GRIZZ]

Next night. I caught another 9 fish. John got 3. 2 largest were 26 inches. The last 26 I caught is pictured separately with the Smethwick that caught it. Gettin some serious fillets.