WALLEYE JUICE OF THE DAY! 🧃
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Walleye fishing on Leech Lake...for the first time! 🦞
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Embarrassed to say that despite only being an hour-ish from home, this was my first time dumping the boat into the legendary Leech Lake (northern MN) to chase walleye. 🙃
But I LOVE exploring new lakes and attempting to put those pieces to the puzzle together, and it turned into an incredible day – once we dialed in the pattern....
I launched out of Trapper’s Landing Lodge and spent the first hour or so Side Imaging with my Humminbird Xplore unit. Saw a bunch of onesie twosies but didn’t really see a wad of ‘em until I came across the tip of a point on a 10-15’ flat that broke off into deeper water.
Started poking around the area and realized that the schooled-up fish were smaller ‘eater’ sized walleye and ultra fussy for some reason. 🤷♂️
But those onesie twosies that were roaming flats in 14-16’ were above-average fish (22” to 27”) and in a bit happier mood.
So I used the ‘Depth Highlight’ feature on my Humminbird Xplore unit to make those areas pop 💥 to narrow down where the most active fish were holding, and then started running spots and duplicating from there.
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Finding ‘em was one thing, but getting ‘em to bite was a whole ‘nother (at first).... Had numerous fish turn me down on jigs and ‘crawler, plastics, glide baits, jerkbaits – you name it.
But if something isn’t working, you’ve got to switch things up! And I’m not just talking about switching up baits....
Realized that despite cycling thru all of my go-tos, I had been trying to make them eat up ⬆️ when it turns out they only wanted to eat down ⬇️.
Why? Because they were eating crayfish! 🦞
Crazy enough they would NOT eat unless the bait was creeping, bopping, along the bottom like our little crustacean friends do. Once I completely changed up how I was presenting the bait, it turned into one of the best bites I have been on in a long time.
Started off catching a pile of ‘em dragging a 1/4-oz VMC RedLine Series Tungsten Ned Head Jig paired with a nightcrawler. And then started playing with some plastics to see what I could get ‘em to go on.
After using some walleye poop 💩 as a hint, I opted for an "ox blood red flake" color Rapala CrushCity Salted NedRoll. Now obviously the color of the walleye poop doesn’t necessarily match the color of the undigested goods, but it’s a nice starting point.
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And yup, they ate the snot out of it!
I dunno about you, but normally when I think of crayfish, I’m picturing rocky areas.... 🤷♂️
But turns out that these flats were doused in chara (aka sand grass):
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Which crayfish love for a few different reasons....
- Chara is a type of dense, mat-forming macroalgae that crayfish will actively graze on. Yup, they will eat it – they’re opportunistic omnivores!
- Of course crayfish also love to hide in it to escape predators.
- But chara also harbors small aquatic insects and snails, which crayfish like to eat.
Almost forgot to mention that towards the end of the video (starting at the 27:43 mark) is the whole reason I baja’d up to Leech Lake in the first place....
I was absolutely honored to somehow be selected as a ‘pro’ for a youth walleye fishing tournament called 'Legends on Leech' that’s put on by Future Anglers of Minnesota, a nonprofit organization designed to mentor kids through fishing. 🙌
The youngsters were paired up with a pro angler and given the opportunity to experience tournament walleye fishing – so cool!
But gotta be honest, I was also absolutely terrified considering THIS batch of hammers was the competition LOL. 😳
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Anywho, I could go on and on 🗣️ but here’s the video proof – from start to finish – of me talking catching my way thru the walleye bite on a new-to-me lake. And whether you’re fishing Leech Lake, or your local backyard honey hole, hopefully there’s a few juicy nuggets that you can apply to your local waters:
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Hope this helps you put a few more topside! Or at least out-fish your buddy, right? 😏 #priorities
Thank YOU for reading/watching! Back to our regularly-scheduled walleye programming soon....
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FRIENDS OF TARGET WALLEYE
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Target Walleye – walleye during open water and all species during hardwater – is brought to you by Al Lindner, Jay Kumar, Chris Philen, Brett McComas and other diehard fish-heads like you!
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Brett McComas is the main man for Target Walleye He was discovered in Brainerd, MN after years of wondering how in the heck people break into the fishing biz. He's in it now, but still can't answer that question.... Brett is one of those guys who majored in marketing, only because there was no such thing as a "fishing degree" at the time.... Get him at brett@targetwalleye.com
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