> One of the things we learned about early-season walleye is what we call the 30-day rule. This rule primarily applies to smaller and medium-sized natural lakes and reservoirs. This rule DOES NOT apply to the Great Lakes or other huge bodies of water where massive schools of walleye migrate great distances….

> The 30-day rule in these smaller bodies of water: If you know the precise time that the walleye spawned, you can almost bet that 30 days later, groups of walleye will be on the first lip of the large shallow flats extending out into the main body of water. These are fish that have already gone through their post-spawn, are regrouping and feeding heavy.

> There can be other groups of fish deeper, but many of the good sized fish will be relating to that first lip.

> The lip could be a 3- to 5-foot drop, either weed-edged or sparsely weeded. In other bodies of water that break might occur at 7 to 10 feet, and still others at 12 to 15 feet. But in all cases the lip is what is considered the main break for that body of water.

> It helps if there is vegetation — however sparse or thick, the walleyes will likely be relating to it. It’s important to realize that the fish will most likely be up on the flat, rather than down the drop.

> Get out our LakeMaster maps and look for those drops-It’s really as simple yet complex as that.

Events

Our friends at Sea Foam know how to catch ’em:

> When the season opens, Tom Neustrom will be throwing Rapala’s new Shadow Rap….

> “Especially on lakes that contain shiners and dwarf ciscoes, that new Shadow Rap should be an awesome bait.”

> “You don’t necessarily have to twitch ’em, like you would for a bass, or jerk them. Just change your speed and cadence on the retrieve.”

> Neustrom will tie on a Shadow Rap to target big, post-spawn female walleyes around dark-colored shallow gravel and scattered rock. “They’re up there looking for bait. If you get some sun during the day, that dark rock will warm up and attract baitfish and young-of-the-year fish and the walleyes will be in there looking.”

> He’ll target these spots in the evening, rather than in the morning or at midday. “During the day, they’ll drop down to the first break, because they were up spawning in the evening. And then they’ll come back up in the low-light period into the shallow water.”

> After making a long cast to a prime-looking spot, Neustrom will quickly crank a Shadow Rap down to its maximum running depth and then…”all of a sudden, I’ll switch to a really slow retrieve.” Before the bait gets back to the boat, he’ll stop and start his retrieve several times.

> Combining a horizontal struggle with a vertical fade, the Shadow Rap perfectly mimics a wounded minnow’s last moments before it dies. When you pause it on slack line, it shimmies from side to side as it’s suspending there. So even when it’s sitting still, it looks just barely alive.