Night fishing’s greatest danger is the long trolling pass, deep into the realm of sensory deprivation. Outside the aura of navigation lights, the world is veiled in black. The sound of water endlessly burbling along the hull begins to sound like a mantra in some voodoo ceremony, bent on the sequestration of your mind. At any moment, you could become a zombie.

It isn’t difficult to make a case for night fishing for walleyes. Dark-side ‘eyes prowl through the night from the Atlantic to the Pacific, cruising rocky points and reefs, inside turns in weedlines, river mouths, and lots of other spots in the Great Lakes, small lakes, reservoirs, and rivers. The walleye is better equipped to feed at night than most fish because a specialized retina in its eye reflects more light onto the rods, giving it a nighttime advantage over most or all baitfish in any system. In spring, walleyes are programmed to be nocturnal anyway because they spawn at night. Night fishing is the great equalizer, producing better after cold fronts and on bodies of water that receive heavy daytime pressure. And from postspawn through midsummer, it’s often the best way to target truly huge fish.

Nights of the full moon can be dynamite for walleyes, in almost any month, but especially in spring and fall. The brightness of a full moon can affect the nocturnal shifts of plankton, resulting in more activity among larger invertebrates and preyfish, drawing them up and out. Walleyes follow suit, feeding higher and more aggressively. Nights of the full moon should be target fishing dates on your calendar.

After all these years, the most productive methods haven’t changed much. A few technological gizmos have come along to make night fishing a little more pleasant, a few new tactics have surfaced, and advances in lures have helped, but the same tactics that worked years ago continue to produce wall-bending results.

Find Walleyes At Night

It’s a simple matter of following walleyes through typical seasonal movements, then translating those positions into nighttime positions. In spring, reservoir walleyes tend to gather at the back ends of creek arms, running up creeks to spawn or spawning along gravel banks. As postspawn progresses, they make their way out to primary and secondary points at the mouth of the creek arm.

In reservoirs during spring and early summer, walleyes prefer flooded woodcover when they can find it. Slow-tapering flats that hold few fish during the day hold lots of walleyes at night near the backs of creek arms. A little later on, stairstep shale or gravel shorelines on those secondary and primary points hold fish at night.

As in most environments, walleyes tend to ride higher and cruise shallower at night. They might hold 20 feet down or deeper during the day, but typically move right up into 2 to 5 feet of water at night.

In the Great Lakes, giant walleyes cruise up rivers like the Maumee, the Saginaw, and the Fox to spawn. Prespawn fishing right on the bank along riprap shorelines at night has become increasingly popular over the years. When walleyes finish spawning, piers and shorelines along rivermouths attract most of the fish. Stone jetties, elbows in pier walls, slag piles, riprap, warmwater discharges, troughs, and sand beaches attract walleyes in spring.

In natural lakes, the same kinds of things happen in microcosm. Walleyes may run creeks as opposed to rivers, but still stage at the mouths before and after spawning. Some of the hottest areas in natural lakes from spring through midsummer for night fishing include necked-down areas between basins, where the lake narrows to the width of a large river; inside turns, where deep water and deep weedlines bend in close to shore; and shallow main-lake points with some hard bottom and patchy weeds up into depths as shallow as 2 feet.

River walleyes like wood, reefs, and rockpiles at this time of year. Good spots can produce all night long, right on top in 1 to 2 feet of water. In fact, river walleyes hit some pretty odd things at night—like spinnerbaits and topwater lures.