> Researchers will be using gill nets to sample small fish such as yellow perch and tullibee that walleye like to eat. They also will use electrofishing and gill netting to find out how the lake’s walleye and northern pike are faring.

> “…will give us the idea of the relative number of adult fish out there and the health of the population, and the recruitment of year classes coming up behind that strong 2013 year class that’s really been driving the fishery.”

> …scientists tested the water and examined fish from the river, and found traces of 22 different drugs and their by-products in their bodies. Many of the drugs were antidepressants.

> The drugs undermine fish development and reproduction, and hurt their ability to catch prey.

Win this mega pile of Lund gear!

How Jason Mitchell picks apart fall weed walleyes.

> Weeds hold walleyes all summer but can become even more appealing in the fall when water temps drop. …what can be so appealing about weed fish is they just don’t move nearly as much as fish on other patterns….

> Typically, in the fall, weeds begin to break down. Green weeds will be random strands and clumps mixed in with dying weeds. If there’s good water circulation and a little bit of green left, walleyes will remain in the breaking-down weeds — and as they break down, they become easier to fish.

> Weed fish sometimes have to be approached methodically where you must grind out a location and wait for the windows where these fish open up.

> A 3.8″ Kalin’s Sizmic Shad on a Spot Stalker Jig…slowly reeled over the tops of weeds or along the break…has accounted for many big walleyes for me over the past couple of years. The Spot Stalker has a thin wire weed guard [that] can crawl through vegetation but is thin enough that it isn’t “walleye proof.”

> …Many anglers are hung up on the notion of keeping the boat out deeper off the break, insisting on casting up into shallower water. This deep-to-shallow angle can be very productive, but this is just one angle to try.

> We often catch many more walleyes by nosing the bow of the boat up further into the weedline where we can cast along the break or parallel to the flat/contour. There’s also times where fish stack up on the inside edge of the weedline, and make long casts along the edge keep the swimbait in front of them so much longer.

> If you’re just picking off a few fish, note exactly where the strikes came and experiment with your angle so you can keep the lure in front of fish longer.