Walley Fishing Tips

The Best Walleye Fishing Tips

Welcome to Apex Fishing Tips, this section of our website is explicitly for walleye fishing. On this web page you'll learn about walleye and walleye fishing tricks, tactics and methods. Anglers of all skill levels will find the information we provided on walleye useful. It doesn't matter if you've been fishing for walleye for years, or this is your first time, our walleye fishing tips will help you catch bigger walleye, more often.

First, you'll find 7 walleye fishing tips that will be helpful in improving your chances of catching walleye. Both experienced and new anglers will be able to use the walleye fishing tips we provide below to catch more walleye. If you have walleye fishing tips that you want to share and see listed below, please contact us and share them.

In addition to 7 walleye fishing tips we're going to educate you on walleye and their behavior. We also provide the currently all-tackle world fishing record for walleye. If you still need more help on how to catch walleye you can visit the additional resources at the bottom of this page. We also provide some awesome walleye fishing pictures.



7 Walleye Fishing Tips

  1. The right conditions will yield the best results when trying to catch walleye. Their eyes are designed for low-light conditions. If you're fishing during the daytime, an overcast (cloudy) day will outperform a clear sky day. Target times of the day one to three hours before dawn and one to three hours after dusk. Some anglers exclusively fish for walleye during the nighttime, especially since they hunt aggressive at night. Choppy and wavy waters are also good times to fish for walleye as they diffuse light.
  2. Walleye prefer cooler water and will be less active as the water temperatures warm up in the spring and summer months. When the water is cool in spring, fall and winter walleye can be found in shallower waters. As the water gets warmer walleye will go into deep water and usually stay there until the water temperatures start to drop. In the summer months, you'll need to go deep and fish around underwater structures.
  3. The three best live bait choices for catching walleye are large minnows, leeches and/or nightcrawlers (worms). If you're going to use minnows, we recommend large shiners and not small fathead minnows. We recommend hooking shiners through one nostril via the upper lip. This does make it easier for them to come off when casting, but they will live longer, swim better and appear more natural. Many anglers like to combine live bait with floating jigs, spinners and flashers.
  4. There are several different walleye fishing rigs you can use with both live and artificial bait. With live bait, such as a minnow or a leech we recommend using a three-way rig. If you're going to use nightcrawlers on a three-way rig, make sure you use a float jig head to keep it off the bottom. Slip bobber rigs are also good for catching walleye and they make it easy to fish at different depths. The live bait rig and the spinner rig are also some good choices for catching walleye.
  5. If you're going to be trolling from a boat or kayak, we recommend using a bottom bouncing rig. They are great for both live and artificial bait. There are countless premade walleye fishing rigs you can use for trolling. The best speed for trolling is between 1 and 2 miles per hour. Don't be afraid to use a heavier weight in choppy or fast moving water when trolling. Be careful when trolling near the shoreline when there are people fishing from shore, you don't want to snag another anglers line.
  6. If you're one of the many anglers who don't like using live bait or complex fishing rigs to catch walleye there are solutions for you. You can catch walleye using jigs with soft plastics, lures that imitate bait fish and spoons. Your local bait shop or retail outdoor store will probably have an endless selection of jigs, plastics, spoons and lures for walleye. We're not going to sit here and tell you one is better over another. Instead, we recommend you test different combinations, lures and spoons to see what works best for where you fish.
  7. Keep a pair of cutting gloves and/or a long pair of needle nose pliers nearby when fishing for walleye. Their slippery bodies and sharp teeth can ruin a good fishing trip. Especially be cautious of handling over 20 inches, they can do some severe damage if they can bite you. Never put your fingers in a walleyes mouth to remove a hook, regardless of how many foolish anglers you see doing it on YouTube.


About Walleye (Sander vitreus)

Walleye (sander vitreus)

Walleyes (Sander vitreus) are a native game fish to Canada and the Northern United States. Anglers sometimes call walleyes yellow pike or yellow walleye. An adult walleye can reach a length of 31 inches and a weight of 20 pounds, but they can grow larger than that. Walleyes can live up to 30 years, but typically heavily fished bodies of water see walleyes only living five or six years.

Walleyes typically feed around dawn and dusk due to their excellent vision in low light conditions. Walleyes eat primarily on yellow perch and ciscoes. Lures and spinners designed to them are the most successful, but anglers have a lot of success with softshell, live minnows and live leaches. Walleyes have a large, powerful mouth with very sharp teeth, be careful when handling one or you'll get bit.



Walleye Fishing Records

The below International Game Fish Association (IGFA) walleye world fishing records are up to date as of 2019.



Walleye Fishing Pictures

A walleye caught while fishing

A picture of a walleye (S. vitreus) caught on a fishing trip.
(Credit: Roger Lupton / Flickr)

A few walleye on a fishing stringer

A picture of a few walleye on a stringer caught on a fishing trip.
(Credit: justin_aten / Flickr)

A jumbo walleye caught while fishing

A picture of a jumbo walleye that was caught on a fishing trip.
(Credit: Aikens Lake / Flickr)



Walleye Fishing Resources