Walleye Behavior in the Great Lakes

The same inshore movement also draws walleyes up many rivers in fall, leading to productive river fisheries and shorecasting opportunities at night. During the day, use the same boat control tactics and jigging techniques you’d apply on a river anywhere else. Just expect more and bigger fish—often much bigger, with 10 pounds and over not uncommon. In a powerful current like the Detroit or St. Clair rivers, you may need to adjust tactics to a handline and heavy weights to ply the bottom with multiple crankbaits, but the principle’s the same. Fish current breaks, eddies, and holes for big walleyes in rivers.

In late fall, night fishing can be incredible, with some of the best fishing right from shore, or more correctly, from piers, jetties, breakwalls, and other manmade walkways extending into the river or harbor mouth, or along the river’s edge. As fish move in and out of these areas, cast a large minnow-imitating crankbait into the darkness, reel in slowly, and hang on. Strikes are big and sometimes back to back.

Or, if you prefer, ply rivers, harbors, and connected smaller lakes via a boat. Longline troll crankbaits along breakwalls, over weed tops, and across submerged manmade structures, depending on what’s available.

In some areas of the Great Lakes, small lakes are formed just inside river mouths. Or fair-sized inland lakes are connected to the river, with walleyes passing through them during seasonal migrations to spawn or to follow baitfish. When big walleyes enter these systems, they react like walleyes in inland lakes; they use points, humps, weedlines, and other structures, and can be caught on livebait rigs, jigs, crankbaits, and other time-honored walleye techniques. Just be aware that the fish are big and have been roaming and suspending in deep clear water during much of the year. If a connected lake also offers that option, explore the basin, at least during the day. As the sun sets, move shallow again to pursue walleyes relating to classic structure.

Something for Everyone

Granted, much of the open-water season, it takes time, commitment, expertise and a financial investment to pursue Great lakes walleyes in big water. But that doesn’t make catching them strictly a rich man’s sport. They also move inshore seasonally, chiefly spring and fall, often moving into rivers and connected lakes where they’re accessible from a small boat, and at times, even from shore. Where safe-ice forms, monsters also are taken through the ice. In fact, all tolled, these walleyes offer the biggest opportunity for the most people to catch the biggest walleyes in North America, because millions of people all around the Great Lakes live within casting distance of giant ‘eyes. You may need to tough out some nasty weather at times, or perhaps lose a little sleep, but it’s worth it. Grrrrrrrrrreat, in fact.