Tail hook your minnows, Hair jig cadence, Treble hook tweaks for ice 🥶

It’s finally the time of year where walleyes strap on the fall feedbag and plump up for winter! No doubt there’s lots of different ways to catch ’em…but it’s tough to beat live-bait rigging with giant 4-6″ creek chubs or redtails when it comes to sticking a true trophy fall-eye. Especially RIGHT NOW until the water temps drop to the mid-40s.

Lots of variations to the technique – you can make it as simple or difficult as you want. One of the tweaks is tail-hooking your chubs to get more action out of ’em, which seems to work especially well on calmer, sunshiny days…or really any time you’re getting turned down by multiple marks on the graph.

Here’s a video breakdown of my complete chubbin’ program (locations, gear, tweaks, etc) and some specifics to the tail-hooking trick that have saved my last couple of trips from picky biters. 👊 Hope you dig it!

Lol.

Posted by B.J. Van Briesen in the Minnesota BassHeads FB group, who said his son Logan will be dressing up as his favorite fisherman for Halloween = the 🦙 Seth Feider!

👏👏👏👏👏 LOVE IT!

After a about a zillion comments on YouTube, social media, or while running errands…I’m probably going to take the easy way out – wear what I usually do – and go as country sanger Luke Combs lol:

Some DIY if you’ve already hung it up (open water) for the year, or you get blown off the water one day.

You don’t always need live bait to catch hardwater walleyes…. 👀 Ever try adding a feathered- or glow-resin treble hook to your favorite jigging spoons? Or maybe a tiny willow-leaf blade to rattlebaits??

I’ve got nothing against live bait (it flat-out catches ’em!) but I think you’ll be shocked at how many walleyes you can put topside with these treble-hook tweaks…just gotta step out of your comfort zone and get them on the water:

Btw I put direct links to all the gear I talked about in the video description on YouTube – waaaay too many to list ’em all here. As always pls drop a comment on the video to let me know what you wanna see next. Thanks much for watching!

These walleye’s facial expressions (= 🤯) say it all hahaha.

First one comes from Gibson Tilley, who also included a little location tip for us:

> “Slow-rolling cranks like the Berkley Flicker Shads across gravel bars down into micro-holes of main-stem rivers is where you’ll find the lone wolves nosed into bigger rock. Fish it right until freeze up!

Another great shot Jake Billings (@jthooker.outdoors) who somehow managed this snap while fishing catching from his kayak in SD:

Still can’t tell if that last one is A) surprised, B) excited, C) cold or D) all the above:

Great pics, fellas! 🙌

Another one of those “never know what I’m going to find in the Target Walleye inbox.” This time comin’ from TW fan Larry DeVore, who clearly knows how to gain access to private water hahaha:

> “My daughter (Katie’s Kreations) hand made this cake for me to give to the owner’s family of small lake I fish for bass. It’s all edible besides the tooth picks.

> “The bass is solid dark chocolate airbrushed with some gold. The weeds, cattails, gone fishing sign, and rocks were all made with modeling chocolate. And the splash was made with homemade hard candy with blue added into it.”

Amazing work! Alright, Katie’s Kreations…we want to see a walleye one next!

1. SD: 2021 was a strong year for walleye production.

Based on fisheries staff’s fall electrofishing catch rates. They sampled up to 412 walleyes/hr on some lakes! To put that into perspective: Any catch rate >150 walleyes/hr is a very strong new year class…75-150 = moderate to strong…30-75 = moderate…<30 = weak.

2. MN: Some interesting Mille Lacs creel survey info.

One thing to keep in mind when reading the #s is these creel surveys are mostly done at public boat ramps. I’ve been out there a handful of times the last few weeks and haven’t met anyone at the ramp doing a creel survey or asking what I’ve caught. But I have also been paying the $10-15 launch fee to dump in at private boat ramps at local resorts. And the times there’s been an inspector at a public ramp when I’m putting in, they were no longer there when I was getting off the water.

3. Does anyone have more tags from banded walleye…

…than TW fan Jeff Dufek from northern MI?

Heck of a collection!

4. MN: Hey Twin Cities folks….

Twin Cities Walleyes Unlimited is having tourney angler and central MN guide Randin Olson speak at their Thursday, Nov 4 meeting. More info here.

5. Garmin had record Q3 results…again.

> Total revenue of $1.19 bil, a 7% increase over the prior year quarter.

> Gross and operating margin were 58.4% and 23.7%, respectively.

> Revenue from the marine segment grew 25% in the third quarter with growth across multiple categories, led by strong demand for our chartplotters.

6. Garmin announces GPSMAP 79 marine handheld series.

Man, does that ever bring back memories. Do you remember when every single diehard ice fisherperson had one of those Lowrance iFinder H20 handheld GPS units? I thought there was going to be a riot when they stopped making ’em.

7. Bennington + Yamaha donate outboards to…

…nation’s top high school marine training program:

> “Bennington…donated a T50 outboard and an F200 outboard to Impact Institute, a Yamaha Marine Technical School Partner in Kendallville, IN. Yamaha matched the donation with a 4.2-liter F300 V6 outboard. Students will use the motors and a certified Yamaha curriculum to gain a comprehensive understanding of the brand’s outboard power systems and add value to Yamaha marine dealers around the country.”

8. NY: Proposed reg changes for bigger panfish.

Part of an experimental program (would run from 2022–2025) to grow bigger sunfish and crappies. The proposals include:

• Reducing the sunfish statewide daily harvest limit from 50 to 25.
• Increasing the crappie statewide minimum size limit from 9″ to 10″.
• Implementing an 8″ minimum size limit and a daily harvest limit of 15 for sunfish in [these 11 lakes] chosen for their potential to grow larger sunfish.

9. RBFF prez, Frank Peterson, announces retirement.

> The Recreational Boating & Fishing Foundation (RBFF) resident and CEO Frank Peterson announced he will step down…on Dec 31, 2021, and will retire on Feb 28, 2022. Peterson’s retirement comes as RBFF continues its mission to increase participation in recreational boating and fishing, thereby helping to conserve and restore aquatic natural resources throughout the U.S.

10. WI DNR battling invasive carp on the Mississippi R.

> …conducting an intensive invasive carp removal effort in Pool 8 of the Mississippi River near La Crosse thru Oct 29.

11. I gotta call out the description…

…for the StrikeMaster Lazer hand auger on SM’s site – check this out:

> “The snickering stops when someone brandishes a Lazer. A hand-auger, yes, but one with ninja skills and blades like Japanese throwing stars. In the right hands, the Lazer cuts to the quick, outpacing off-brand, bottom feeding hand-augers, even cheap gas-augers.”

Love that! 🤣

12. Few recent fishing podcasts…

JMO Podcast: MB greenbacks w/ Donovan Pearase.

We Eat. Fish Eat. (Larry Smith) chats with Lake Erie hammer Julia Davis.

Fish House Nation Podcast: Early-ice on Upper Red Lake.

13. OH: Nov Lake Erie fishing outlook w/ Ross Robertson.

How Chase Parsons fishes hair jigs in cold water.

Breaks down 2 very different jigging cadences depending on the type of structure:

Warning: You have now entered arguably the best fishing of the season:

But seriously if you are storing your boat, make sure you’re hitting it with Sea Foam!

Cody Benjaminson caught one that was worth the dreaded “first cast curse!” 🤣 He joined the 30″ club with his new PB. 👊 Congrats man!

National Professional Anglers Assoc. 

MN-FISH