With light jigs, walleyes generally inhale your entire bait. In most cases, I set the hook as soon as I feel a strike. With heavier jigs, or if I’m using bigger livebait and I’m setting the hook and missing, I often try waiting before setting. A big jig and minnow combo may be difficult for walleyes (especially smaller walleyes) to inhale. Sometimes, even big lethargic walleyes get only half the bait on the first strike. Wait and they may engulf the entire bait. Keep constant pressure on the fish until you feel it reposition the bait (tick-tick goes your tip; chomp-chomp goes the bait). Walleyes, though, sometimes spit jigs if they sense they’ve put something in their mouths that’s not edible. Adding a stinger hook is another option if you’re missing fish, which allows for setting the hook immediately.

To catch walleyes suspended off bottom or in open water, drop the jig to the bottom until the line goes slack, and reel up to the level where you marked the suspended fish. A line-counter reel (or a clip-on line-counter) allows you to reel up to nearly the exact spot where you marked the fish. A flasher sonar not only allows you to see and position your lure at precise depths, but also indicates fish—much like using flasher units for ice fishing.

Whichever method you use, try to position the jig near or slightly above the depth where you marked fish. Walleyes suspended a few feet from bottom generally are aggressive and won’t hesitate to swim over or up to investigate. But rarely will walleyes swim down to eat your bait—they’re not looking that way.

Again, a lift-drop of about 6 inches will do—just enough to create some motion for nearby walleyes to spot your bait. Lift-drop; bounce-bounce; hold-hold. A walleye that swims upward to strike your lure often hits from the bottom up, which may momentarily cause your line to go slack. Depending on the weight of your lure, the sudden loss of weight—after the fish inhales and continues to glide upward—may also cause your rod tip to pop up. It’s an abnormal feeling, but no less a strike. Slowly remove slack between the tip and the walleye before setting the hook. Sometimes, it’s better to wait until the fish turns to swim back down before setting, in order to get a good hookset in the corner of the mouth.

Medium spinning gear works best. Consider a 6-foot medium-light to medium-power fast-action spinning rod and spinning reel spooled with 6- to 8-pound mono. In deep water, I like a 6- to 61⁄2-foot medium to medium-heavy spinning rod so I can get a good hookset. Thin-diameter line cuts through water better than thicker, heavier line, so 6- to 8-pound mono will suffice. In deep water (40 to 50 feet), superlines like 15-pound Berkley FireLine cut through the water and offer good sensitivity. When fishing wood or rock snags, 10-pound test enables you to straighten most light-wire hooks to get your jig back.

Spoons And Blades

Vertical jigging spoons and blades are more aggressive tactics. Spoons and blades work anytime walleyes are holding on the edge of deep structure, like points, suspended in open water or off the tips edge of structure, or in current like tailraces below dams. Walleyes staging along river channel ledges can be caught on blades and spoons. In reservoirs, where silver-sided baitfish like ciscoes, shad, smelt, and alewives are present, walleyes often suspend near large schools of baitfish and can be caught on silver spoons and blades—fine representations of an injured coldwater baitfish. Even working them above submerged wood can attract walleyes out of snag-infested cover to investigate a potential meal.