I’ve fished many of the greatest walleye fisheries in North America—and I’ve fished many of the most average, just like some of those out your backdoor. One pattern that develops during spring and early summer remains little understood. It exists on most fisheries, although given the many types of walleye waters it takes on different flavors. After many years and thousands of miles and hundreds of hours on the water, I can tell you what to look for on the waters you fish. You can transform some of your fishing simply by stepping into an alternative walleye reality.

We anchor with the nose of our boat on shore, casting into slightly deeper water at the end of a giant bay (creek arm really) on Last Mountain Lake, Saskatchewan, one of the best trophy walleye waters I’ve fished in recent years. Last Mountain isn’t remote. Indeed, it’s an urban fishery, just 40 minutes north of Saskatchewan’s capital, Regina.

Like most anglers, I’ve driven past it before, in 1969, on my way to fish waters I consider much more intriguing because they are much further north. The quest at that time was to travel into the “real wilderness,” past Lac La Ronge to the southern tip of Reindeer Lake, to head up a newly opened mining road to Wollaston, all points previously open only to fly-in fishing. How ironic 40 years ago to drive past one of the ultimate drive-to fisheries in North America.

Last Mountain is a big one at more than 50 miles long, cut from rolling prairie but not more than a mile wide at most points. Max depths reach about 90 feet. Whitefish and ciscoes abound—perch, various shiners, darters, other minnows too. And burbot, carp, sculpin.

I’ve never seen walleyes with more rolls of body-cavity fat when you clean them. By the time these butterballs reach 18 inches most of them are 6 to 8 ounces heavier than on other fisheries. Even in spring, 30-inch fish usually weigh 10 pounds. In fall they might go more than 11.

Carved as it is into prairie terrain, there’s a lot of flat water connected to the main body of the lake. At the core of this trophy fishery, which also grows some of the largest pike in North America, is the idea that walleyes can be just about anywhere and find abundant, nutritious forage of various sizes. I think the “various sizes” part of the forage connection is more important than most anglers think—and vital in this situation. More on this later.

During spring, beginning several weeks after the spawn and into early summer, most walleyes spend more time shallower than most anglers realize. That’s not just true on Last Mountain, but just about everywhere walleyes swim. Perhaps the Columbia River is an exception—I haven’t had enough time on that waterway to know for sure, but overall, this idea is fundamental to a pattern that unfolds on Last Mountain as well as on most other walleye waters.

We are more than a mile deep into this creek arm away from the main body of water. Traveling into the bay from the main lake, we find rocky points near the mouth. Smaller bays within the larger creek arm appear and support newly emergent weedgrowth as we push in farther from the main lake. There is perhaps an occasional scratch of gravel bottom here and there back in portions of the larger bay, some scattered rocks, but for the most part, the attraction for walleyes deep inside the creek arm must be the warmer water that attracts abundant forage.

Where we anchor, not more than 1 walleye angler in 10,000 would feel at home, during any season. It is walleye territory in pike’s clothing. On many other waters around North America it would be considered bass territory. Nonetheless, a lot of walleyes swim here.

Back up with me for a moment. It’s a momentary surprise when we catch our first walleye deep inside the bay as we troll for pike. I’m with Robert Schulz, owner of G&S Marina Outfitters, which offers lodging and a marina on the lake’s east side in Rowan’s Ravine Provincial Park. He’s showing me how he trolls with #12 Husky Jerks and # 9 Jointed Float Rapalas on short lines behind mini-boards to find pike when they’re scattered in these huge bays.

As I say, we catch a walleye, which at first strikes me as odd, given the surroundings. He tells me it’s common and that it’s typical to catch giant walleyes, to boot. That’s when it hits me that the situation we’re in is just one of the more extreme manifestations of a pattern I’ve seen over and over again and yet still is mostly overlooked on most walleye waters.

We are shooting television, and by the time we finish our pike segment with fish that measure up to 46 inches, we’ve also caught enough walleyes to know they’re scattered around the bay. I don’t think television is a place to showcase mediocrity so I suggest we fish with swimbaits, which I explain tend to get the “big bite.” Schulz has not thrown them before in this situation. Almost no one has.

As we anchor, I further explain that fishing a swimbait is in many ways like fishing a crankbait—you must keep it moving along steadily to have it display the swimming characteristics that trigger fish. OK, momentarily pause it a time or two, during any retrieve.

I give Schulz a 5-inch Berkley Hollow Belly rigged on a 1/2-ounce Owner Saltwater Bullet jighead. I add a touch of superglue to keep the jighead in place up against the head of the swimbait. The Hollow Belly is at the time newly introduced (I only have a few) and “not designed to fish on a jighead,” the rest of the fishing world will tell you. So this should make an interesting addition to the TV segment. Meanwhile, I’m casting my favorite 5-inch Berkley PowerBait Swim Shad on the same jighead. Which swimbait will produce best?

On Schulz’s second cast—I fib not, his second cast—he sticks a walleye that’s easily 10 pounds. I talk about swimbaits on film, he says he’s certainly impressed, we release the fish and get back at it.

The fish are really scattered. We catch two more, each measuring about 23 inches from our anchor position and begin moving around the bay, stopping and anchoring in various spots where Schulz commonly catches walleyes while he’s trolling for pike.

In every spot we catch at least one fish from 20 to 26 inches. It has been monstrously windy all morning and now it starts to drizzle. I suggest we return to our first spot before we have to quit filming. The fish that I catch shortly after we anchor up easily measures 32 inches—I call it 12 pounds. Am I the only TV fisherman who underestimates fish weight? Schulz, who sees more giant walleyes than I do, calls it a sure 13—a nice way to end a show segment. It’s the largest of many big walleyes that I’ve caught on swimbaits.

You see the common pattern elements: (1) Walleyes are shallower than many might expect; (2) at times they’re in areas well off the main lake; and (3) weedgrowth is present, although fish aren’t always right in it.

The Pattern on Other Waters

The same pattern plays forth on Canadian Shield waters, those classic Canadian waters set on granite, surrounded by the great forests of Canada. If you can find weeds inside big bays after fish have spawned in late May and into June, you usually have walleyes. I would say “you usually find walleyes,” except most anglers don’t find them because they have no idea to look for them.

In many cases, at least some walleyes hold near weeds all summer long, though they often move progressively farther into the main lake (or reservoir or river). Lac Seul has a well-known weed bite going most of the year, but never so pronounced as when fish first gather near weeds several weeks after spawning—and for the next month.

On any Shield water that has lake trout and walleyes, find weedgrowth in obvious bays off the main lake and you’re going to find walleyes. At times the weeds may be newly emerging cabbage or coontail on classic spots on drop-offs or on humps in major bays. Other times the growth is only in pockets off the main part of the major bays, far removed from the main lake.

In its time in the late 1970s, this was one of the most significant patterns for big walleyes on the Shield but known to only a handful of anglers. Hartley, Iowa, native Dave Henning and his father Ben taught me this pattern. On many of these lakes this pattern has been reduced for big fish because fishing pressure has taken its toll the last 25 years. These are fragile fisheries in their ability to grow and sustain big fish.

Meanwhile on Lake of the Woods, weedgrowth in many parts of the lake has been eliminated by rusty crayfish—so, areas where walleyes commonly gathered are now gone. Still, if you can just find weeds in areas away from giant main-lake areas, you can find the fish.

Two years back on the opening of muskie season in late June, I am fishing around an emergent patch of phragmites inside a small bay deep inside a larger bay. Close by I find a big bed of cabbage the crayfish haven’t gotten to yet. A cast over the bed produces a walleye that strikes my spinnerbait. Note: All those walleyes randomly caught by pike and muskie anglers casting to weedgrowth during June and into July are not a passing coincidence, so much as a significant indication of one of the most important walleye patterns of the calendar year.

You’re getting the idea—but now stretch the pattern to other waters. Try Fort Peck Reservoir in Montana; Oahe, South Dakota; Red Willow, Nebraska. For at least a time stretching into early summer, weedgrowth (or at times brush as a substitute) in creek arms and cuts in creek arms attract walleyes. Generally, it’s just one of several patterns unfolding, but at times it’s a major pattern.

Elsewhere, in river-run reservoirs like the pools on the Mississippi, a location pattern revolves around the same weedgrowth that attracts largemouths and smallmouths, along main-channel areas, in side channels, and occasionally in connected lakes.

The pattern also is prevalent on Great Lakes bays, from portions of the Bay of Quinte and the bays in the Henderson Harbor area of Lake Ontario, to parts of Saginaw Bay and spots on Lake Michigan, in giant bays off the main lake like Bays de Noc, portions of Green Bay, and bays in and around Sturgeon Bay, abutting Lake Michigan. Admittedly, in all these areas other patterns are developing too; but the weed-in-bay pattern can be a strong one, even though it often isn’t being fished. Actually, it is being fished in the Henderson Harbor area; I’m going to make the point later that perhaps it isn’t being fished right.

In classic natural lakes and reservoirs across the heart of the walleye belt, it’s the same basic story but with a lot more twists. Often it depends how good the walleye population is and how much weedgrowth is available— a more complicated story, with many different tentacles and changing patterns, requiring much more explanation than space allows; but in a moment I offer examples from one such walleye lake I’ve fished consistently for the last 8 years.

If you’re wondering about shallow, dark-water prairie lakes and reservoirs, just find weedgrowth, even at times only emergent weedgrowth like rushes and cane, and the fish are there. Usually in these fertile lakes this pattern doesn’t develop in backwater areas connected to the main lake, but right in the main lake.

About the timing: In reservoirs as far south as Red Willow, Nebraska, most years the connection is there by early May. In southern Minnesota fishing usually peaks by late May and often lasts several weeks into June, while on some portions of the Great Lakes the pattern is going by mid-May.

The Presentation Part of the Pattern

For the last 8 years I’ve fished this pattern on Mille Lacs Lake, Minnesota, one of North America’s great walleye fisheries, where it starts by early June most years. On a good morning when you’re the first one onto some of the best weedbeds, two anglers might catch 30 fish, ranging mostly from 20 to 26 inches. The biggest fish I’ve caught here—about two a year—have all measured from 28 to 28.25 inches. It’s rare to catch fish smaller than 18 inches, but occasionally it happens. Last year smaller fish were fairly common, but I also caught a lot more fish than most years.

Some years only a few weed areas inside of bays hold fish. Last year anywhere you found weedgrowth away from shorelines there were walleyes for at least three weeks. Prime spots had fish for at least a month.

Each year is a little different on Mille Lacs. Typically, the fishing slows by the end of June. One year it only lasted about two weeks and the fishing was marginal. In another, when forage counts were extremely low, it lasted well into July.

You can almost always catch walleyes from weedgrowth on Mille Lacs, and on most other classic walleye lakes like Mille Lacs; it’s just a question of how many and for how long it’s easy. Usually, for example, I can scratch a couple fish any time in July and August, but by that time the fish in this pattern are mostly gone—and the weedgrowth has become so difficult to fish through that you can’t get at the remaining fish.

Stringy weeds like eelgrass grow up high as the season progresses, and the stiffer weeds that stand up straight and are attractive to fish early begin to fall over, making it tough to fish through areas. At times at night when the fish hold high you can still make good catches over and through the tops of the weedgrowth, especially by late August, but that’s not the pattern we’re talking about here.

The Swimbait Connection

I want you to think about the connection between the swimbaits and good catches. Other anglers are fishing these weedbeds and sometimes do well with crankbaits. I often do well with #12 and #14 Husky Jerks on dark days when the fish are holding up higher. It isn’t unusual for muskie anglers throwing smaller jerkbaits to catch these fish. But swimbaits are the best overall answer I’ve found.

Mille Lacs is one of the great naturally productive walleye-perch lakes in North America. Year-classes of perch boom at times and this affects walleye fishing, although exactly how becomes an intricate story that depends on forage size and numbers as predator and prey move through the seasons. Skipping that for now for the sake of space, here’s what I’m seeing that might suggest why the swimbaits work so well, aside from the fact that the swimming motion of these lures is gigantically attractive to walleyes.

Consider last year, the 2008 season. In 2007, a huge year-class of perch hatches and last year those forage fish are an inch or so long in June. They are everywhere but especially concentrated in bays, and in the bays they’re especially concentrated around weedgrowth.

Often the sonar screen is blackened from top to bottom as I fish a weedbed. Looking down into the water, giant schools of perch pass the boat about every half a minute. One calm morning, there’s never a time I can’t look into the water and see perch shimmering by, never a time I can’t look far into the distance and see thousands of them dimpling the surface for as far as the eye can see.

Yet the plentiful walleyes in these weedbeds aren’t feeding on this bounty. The bigger fish that I catch, which must be released because they fall within a slot regulation, are always lean and pretty much stay that way into July. You can’t feel smaller forage in their stomachs—occasionally you can feel larger prey, presumably larger perch.

Last season we could keep walleyes less than 18 inches. I clean five fish and they also don’t have tiny perch in them, when you’d think all a walleye would have to do is swim with its mouth open, there are so many tiny perch. I also never see walleyes busting the surface feeding on perch, never see them chasing subsurface, either.

Apparently there’s something about the size of the perch that makes them unappealing to walleyes at this time. Surely it has something to do with the expenditure of energy per mouthful gained, because walleyes are constantly swimming right through giant schools of perch to attack 5-inch swimbaits, swimming right past thousands of tiny perch to eat swimbaits so large that most walleye anglers would never think to fish them.

The Alternative Reality

I think this is going on across the country a lot more than walleye anglers realize, and thus the situation is counterintuitive to everything most every walleye angler has learned. First, most anglers are heading deeper instead of shallower, looking for gravel and rock when they should be looking for weeds. And always—always—anglers are brainwashed to pick up something small, maybe tip it with livebait, and fish it slowly. Then, when things aren’t going well, they make the erroneous assumption that the fish are even more “off” than they thought—so they temper back even more, fishing even smaller and slower.

Meanwhile, I keep holding up these swimbaits, which are really no longer or larger than a #12 Rapala Husky Jerk, and anglers en masse reach for crosses to ward off this evil giant. If I have to watch another angler casting a 3-inch plastic twistertail on a quarter-ounce jighead I’ll scream.

Soft swimbaits like the Storm WildEye Swim Shad and the Berkley PowerBait Swim Shad are among the most remarkable tools to arrive on the fishing scene in the 30-plus years I’ve been in the business. They certainly are not magic—of course they don’t work all the time—but often enough they’re special in their ability to turn fish into eating machines. This is one of those times.

They also tend to get the big bite, meaning they consistently trigger larger fish, but not at the expense of getting smaller fish to bite. Too, everything that eats anything that swims bites them, meaning they aren’t just great for walleyes, but for smallmouths, pike, largemouths, wipers, stripers, redfish, and more.

They should be part of any walleye angler’s stock of lures. They are as core as crankbaits. As fundamental as spinner-rigging. As basic as any form of livebait-rigging. This noted, and given that most walleye anglers still have never used them, purchasing a few and fishing this pattern with them could well be the single biggest step forward that an angler might make to catch more fish this coming season—and for the rest of your life.

The great divide between the reality of walleyes being turned on by big swimbaits in situations where most anglers are fishing tiny stuff is entirely mind-made.