My guess is that only a few eccentric walleye fanatics have fallen asleep dreaming about their boat drifting over thousands of walleyes weighing between 6 and 14 pounds. Oh, I suppose a few have conjured up such fascinating dreams, but a much more realistic guess would be the number of Great Lakes walleye anglers who have actually passed over thousands of heavyweight walleyes.

It’s the place to be if catching huge walleyes strikes your fancy, whether you fish them when they pass through rivers or track them down when they move back toward the lake basins. Armed with the right tackle and gear, along with the appropriate tactics, these big-water monsters are accessible throughout the seasons.

River Presentations

The potential for tremendous walleye action exists anytime anglers intercept walleyes migrating to and from their spawning sites. Again, millions of Great Lakes walleyes, including big females weighing from 9 to over 14 pounds, use rivers to reach their spawning sites, perhaps the most impressive river walleye runs around. Traditional river tactics used in walleye waters everywhere work on the Great Lakes, although over the years, regional anglers have modified, concocted, and developed presentations to catch more and bigger river walleyes.

Vertical Jigging—Vertical jigging is one of the most popular presentations used to catch river walleyes. The tactic minimizes water resistance and line length to your lure, which maximizes control and allows you to position your lure in precise spots. It’s an ideal way to present jigs, spoons, or bladebaits naturally and slowly along potential walleye-holding areas in current.

Boat control is critical for vertically jigging in rivers. Most conditions call for slowly moving along, using motor thrust against the current to obtain a near neutral drift speed.

Concentrate on visible current edges, generally just inside the calmer water, or slowly drift downstream in areas of modest current along river breaks walleyes use to migrate upstream. Hover in prime spots with your outboard or electric motor; anchor if necessary to properly work the area. In heavy current or in key spots where walleyes are concentrated, anchoring may be one of the best ways to keep your presentation vertical.

In essence, jigs anchor and deliver livebait. Typical jig sizes range from 1/4 ounce in shallower water up to over 1 ounce in deeper water or where current is swift. Heavier jigs ensure that you stay vertical, and big fish don’t have a problem engulfing the larger jig. Jigs with a narrow profile, like Jack’s River Jig, which is flat on the sides and deep top to bottom, cut through current and stay vertical, which allows you to use lighter jigs.

Use a 6-foot medium-light to medium-power fast-action spinning rod and a medium-capacity spinning reel spooled with 6- to 8-pound-test mono or 6/4-pound-test Berkley FireLine. FireLine not only cuts through current better than mono, but also enables you to detect bites better in snag-infested rivers; and when you snag, the strong no-stretch line allows you to straighten wire jig hooks to get your jig back.

Let out just enough line for the jig to touch bottom, and use a slow lift-drop motion to work the jig 6 to 8 inches on and off bottom. Touch bottom with the jig, but don’t let it drag or you’ll snag. Fish generally strike the jig as it falls. Pay close attention to detect light strikes or fish that may have hit your jig on the fall.

Blades and spoons produce lots of flash and vibration for triggering walleyes staging along river channel ledges. Bladebaits like a Heddon Sonar or Reef Runner Cicada provide vibration and action on the rise. Spoons like Northland’s Buckshot Rattle Spoon, or Lindy-Little Joe’s Rattl’r have enclosed rattles that further enhance their attracting power as they wobble on the fall.

Present blades and spoons on about 10-pound test with either spinning or casting gear. A 6- to 7-foot medium-heavy casting or spinning rod spooled with 10/6-pound Berkley Fireline allows you to feel the bait work and to detect bites.

Drop a spoon to the bottom, then engage the reel, taking up slack until the line is tight and the spoon is just off bottom. Beginning with your rod tip pointed down at an angle (about 8 o’clock) toward the water, lift your forearm slightly while modestly snapping your wrist upward to about 11 o’clock. Use aggressive lift-drops of perhaps 12 to 18 inches. As the lure begins to descend, follow it downward with the rod tip. Keep slight tension, concentrate, and be prepared to set the hook immediately when you feel any resistance.

Vertical Jigging Plastics-Only—Tipping jigs with plastic tails works as long as you’re confident it’ll work, which is mostly a matter of negating our ingrained dependence on lacing our lures with livebaits. Pro walleye angler Andy Kuffer has acquired the confidence it takes to catch walleyes using plastics-only.

“Jigging with plastics is one of my favorite presentations,” Kuffer says. “I basically try to imitate the action of a minnow with plastic. Soft plastic shad-type bodies with a heavy boot-like tail really thump and swim in the current. Mister Twister Sassy Shads, for instance, have a side-to-side wobble on the fall, which I think triggers more strikes.”

Use a jig heavy enough to keep the presentation vertical. Kuffer favors a 3/8-ouncer. In rivers, a 3/8-ounce jig stays fairly vertical under most conditions, so long as the boat moves at the same speed as the current. In heavy current or in depths exceeding 35 feet, a 1/2- to 5/8-ounce jig may be required to stay vertical. “Getting a plastic shad tail to wobble on the downstroke seems to be the trigger. I thread the plastic on the hook so the body is angled slightly downward, which seems to give the bait more wobble on the fall portion of the jigging stroke. It’s also important to keep the knot positioned on top of the jighead so it falls better through the water.”

Kuffer prefers 6-foot extra-fast baitcasting or spinning rod-and-reel combos spooled with superline, like 10/4 Berkley FireLine. Superlines offer better sensitivity than mono and produce less drag in current. To reduce line twist, Kuffer uses a swivel to connect a 10-pound mono leader to the superline.

“I typically lower the jig about half as fast as I lift it on the upstroke. Free fall the jig and you’ll miss a lot of fish. I try to get into a steady rhythm, slowly waving the jig up and down. Touch bottom, lift up, and slowly lower the bait on a tight line. The key is to give the bait enough action to attract fish, yet work it slow and steady so the fish can time their attack.”

A Case for Vertical Swimming Lures—Originally designed for ice fishing, swimming lures are becoming popular for vertically working walleyes, particularly in rivers. Swimming lures are designed to look like baitfish—so fish are often fooled into believing the lure is food by the body shape. A #7 Rapala Jigging Rapala or Nils Master Jigging Shad, molded from lead, is heavy enough to keep vertical, even in deeper water and current, which keeps the bait hovering over fish, teasing them with the realistic-looking lure. The key to using swimming lures in open water is to work them subtly instead of aggressively.

A few years ago, walleye pro Kim “Chief” Papineau, an avid ice angler, decided to launch one of his favorite ice fishing lures over the side of his boat. “While prefishing a tournament, I opened my jig box to get another jig and noticed a #7 Rapala Jigging Rap mixed in with my jigs. So I thought, what the heck, grabbed it, tipped the lower treble with a minnow, and lowered it to the bottom,” explains Papineau, “then raised it up about 6 inches and caught an 8-pounder. I put it down again and instantly caught a 10-pounder. I used the ice lure the entire tournament and finished in second-place. Since then, I’ve used them all over the country, and under the right conditions, they produce walleyes everywhere—but especially in rivers.”

Swimming lures are designed to swim, but Papineau doesn’t jig the lure much at all; rather, he shakes the bait ever so slightly, which adds a little extra action to the already realistic looking minnow lure. “In rivers, I simply lower the bait to bottom, then reel up and hold the bait anywhere from 3 to 6 inches above bottom. Definitely stay down near bottom in rivers. River fish are bottom-orientated, so it’s where you should position your bait—right in their faces. The key is to just shake the bait slightly, either with your wrist or by just barely bouncing the rod tip, but resist the temptation to overwork it and swim it. Just hang it in their faces and add a few shakes to trigger strikes.

“I primarily use a #7 Jigging Rap, but I’ve also caught fish on the #5 and #6, and I’ve used the Nils Master Jigging Shad, too. I like tipping the lower treble with a minnow for added scent, but a lively minnow also adds action to the bait. When fish hit, they totally engulf the lure.

“I prefer drifting with the current in locations that have a constant depth, so I don’t have to keep checking or feeling for bottom, which reduces snagging,” he says. “I may find a stretch where the fish are holding in 12 feet where I can drift with the current, keeping the boat positioned at that depth,” he says.

Three-way rigging—The strength of three-way rigging is the ability to hold livebait or lures just above bottom, regardless of depth, current, or speed. Simply select the proper size weight depending on depth and current speed and the best bait (livebait or artificial) to trigger walleye strikes.

Three loops of the swivel provide attachment points for your main line, dropper line, and leader. Varying the length of the dropper line moves a lure or bait closer or farther from bottom. Changing the snell length positions your lure or bait farther or closer to the hardware and affects how far the bait is off bottom. In general, the longer the leader, the farther your offering will droop toward bottom unless a float is added to increase its buoyancy.

Again, use sufficient weight to match depth and current. A properly weighted rig should lift-drop under increased tension when you lift the rod tip, slipping slightly downcurrent before settling to bottom again. Bell sinkers in the 1- to 3-ounce range are most common, although other styles work, too.

A standard three-way livebait rig, for instance, holds a minnow in place just off bottom, whether you’re hovering, anchored, or trolling. As the weight settles to bottom, the rig pulls tight and the bait or lure extends downstream, swinging, swaying, dancing in current. A minnow swimming in the current does all the attracting and trigging for you as it struggles and swims side to side, facing the current.

Cranks run behind a three-way swivel wiggle and wobble in current, even when the sinker is at rest in an anchored position. Shallow-diving cranks excel for rivers. Typically, small to medium minnow-imitators (2 to 4 inches) tend to produce best, particularly if the fish are a bit inactive.

Trolling often works best with an artificial lure that easily wobbles in current; use the current’s natural assistance to your advantage. Lengthen the dropper slightly to accommodate the diving depth of the lure. If you still snag, shorten the leader slightly to prevent the lure from diving and snagging bottom. Note whether fish prefer an upstream, aggressive wobble; a subtle hover; or even trolling downcurrent—it almost always makes a difference.

Another Great Lakes three-way tactic is adding a deep-diving crankbait to one of the rings with about a two-foot section of 12-pound mono, and to another ring a flutterspoon on a three-foot leader of the same pound test. A deep-diving crankbait easily pulls the flutterspoon down with it into the strike zone, doubling the attracting power—and your odds. Experiment with different crankbait sizes and designs to target specific depths.

Basin Tactics

Once spawning is complete, most walleyes school outside the river mouth, suspending and roaming the open basin and zeroing in on local baitfish opportunities. The challenge of catching suspended fish in basins is locating them. Walleyes may suspend nearly anywhere in the water column, depending on light penetration, water temperature, depth of forage, walleye activity, and current created by waves.

As a rule, walleyes start off the day near bottom. As they become active, they tend to rise in the water column, looking for food. Under the right conditions, walleyes may move to within a few inches of the surface. With a basic understanding of open-water walleye behavior, coupled with some practice and experience, most anglers are capable of learning the open-water game quite quickly.

In-line planer boards have emerged as the most popular presentation for open-water walleyes. Due to the typically clear water, suspended walleyes tend to shift one way or the other away from the path of a boat. A planer board allows you to position your baits over fish without spooking them, so they’re often willing to take the bait trailing behind the board.

Planers attach to your line via a release mechanism, although most walleye anglers opt to clamp them tightly on the line and remove them by hand as they fight in a fish. They work well with a variety of lures, ranging from spoons to crankbaits to spinner-crawler harnesses, at a range of trolling speeds from 4 or 5 mph to less than 1 mph, particularly in cold water.

As you slowly troll forward, let out your lure and line—typically 10-pound monofilament—a desired distance. If fish are relatively shallow—less than 25 feet—unweighted or diving lures should reach them. If they’re deeper, let out about 50 feet of line and pinch on a snapweight ranging from about 1/2 to 3 ounces. Then let out sufficient additional line to position your lure at a target depth, based on trolling speed. A metered trolling reel and a 71⁄2- to 9-foot long-handled trolling rod provide the best combination of repeatable accuracy and control.

Now attach the planer board to your line via a set of pinch releases, lower it into the water, and feed it out under line tension, or reel clicker tension, to send the board out a desired distance (typically 50 to 130 feet) to the side of the boat, spreading and trailing your line and lure behind it. When it reaches the desired spread distance, engage your reel and place the rod in a holder.

Proceed to set out additional setups, forming a wedge-shaped array spread to either side of the boat. Target a specific known productive depth or spread lures throughout the depths until you locate fish. Troll forward, typically downwind, incorporating lazy turns to impart speed changes to lures. Note the presence and depth of suspended fish on your electronics, and reset lines as necessary to reach them.

According to walleye pro Tommy Skarlis, “The key to tracking down these roamers on the Great Lakes is to cover lots of water, which basically eliminates unproductive water. Planer boards allow you to make wider swaths with baits to track down schools of fish.

“I basically start by making long trolling passes in order to find different schools of fish. Once I catch a fish or two, I then troll a crisscross or X-pattern in order to determine the size of the school and which direction the school may have shifted, depending on the wind direction and speed,” Skarlis says.

“I also do a lot of S-turns and circles, where I swing back around to troll back over a pod of fish,” Skarlis says. “In order to turn sharp or make a circle, you need to space your boards. I space mine about 30 feet apart and keep them out quite a ways from the boat—say 75 to 120 feet. Keeping the boards out ensures that I’m not spooking the fish with my boat.”

Walleyes often travel in schools, and multiple strikes are common once active fish are located. Punch in their location with an icon on your GPS. When you troll past a school of fish, pick up lines, move back upwind of the school, reset lines while approaching them, and catch even more.

Another popular method for positioning baits deep is using diving planers that attach in-line between the line and the lure. The angled diver face dives deep, pulling the lure along with it. Some planers also can be set to run at different angles out to the sides, allowing for a spread of lures at different depths and distances from the boat. Changing line length adjusts lure depth without having to retrieve the rig. A strike trips a trigger, de-angling the face of the diver, which reduces water resistance and allows you to fight the fish. Use a rubber snubber between the diving planer and leader to absorb shock, and run a 4- to 6-foot heavy mono leader to the lure.

Due to the extreme water resistance of divers, heavy 8- to 10-foot, long-handled trolling rods placed in rod holders and 20-plus-pound line are necessary. But divers take lures deep, to 50 feet with mono, deeper with superline or wire, and they can be used at speeds exceeding 4 mph for spoons or some crankbaits. Avoid deep-diving lures; spoons, crawler harnesses, and shallow cranks run fairly level behind the planer, but deep-diving cranks dip below it, pulling down the back of the diver, resulting in a loss of diving depth.

Walleyes hugging bottom often are less active, if not inactive. These bottom-huggers are prime candidates for banging heavy three-ounce bottom bouncers, big-bladed spinners, and nightcrawlers to stir them into activity. Using heavy bottom bouncers allows you to keep the bouncers tracking at about a 45-degree angle while slowly trolling forward at about 1 mph. The heavy bouncer banging and stirring up bottom sediment seems to help attract walleyes and possibly even help get them active enough to strike.

These great presentations have been proven productive for catching Great Lakes walleyes by some of the best walleyes anglers in the world. Time on the water is really the only way to learn and fine-tune them well enough to start catching giant ‘eyes. Mastering presentations, locating fish, then selecting the best presentation for conditions is the best way to catch big ‘eyes in the Great Lakes. There aren’t many things that feel better than that initial strike and the weight of a whopper.