Walleye don't hit Slammers...

[FishDr]

I’ve been putting time in on the vampire shift for big walleye since Fall 2009, and the vast majority of those fish have come on swimbaits, with just a few (4) on suspending jerkbaits.  I think I’m up around 25 fish in the 25+†class, with a handful of 30s and one, my PB, that was 30.5†long and 20†around.  In the 6 years I’ve been able to figure a few things out.

Walleye like Hudds – they have accounted for all of my big walleye except for the 4 that ate jerkbaits, my PB, which ate a Rising Son, a trio of fish that ate the 8†BBZ-1, and another trio of fish that ate the 175 SS.

 

 

What is clear, but what isn’t shown in the figure on trophy walleye lure selection is what they haven’t hit.  Anyone who lurks on this site knows that my bread and butter lure, the one that gets more water time than any other, is the MS Slammer, normally the 9†version but occasionally the 7†version.  I have thrown the Slammers for tens of hours on known walleye lakes (known because I catch my trophy ‘eyes on those lakes) and I have never caught a walleye on a Slammer. Never.  Not once.  Not even a hit.  This has led me to believe that there is something about the Slammer that walleyes don’t like, which is odd, because I’ve caught bass on Slammers, pike on Slammers, wipers on Slammers, but never a walleye, for whatever reason.

 

Another thing I’ve learned about fishing for and occasionally catching big walleye is that on a good night Imight catch a fish, on a great night I might catch two big fish, but, on average, I catch around ¼ of a fish per night, or to put it another way, I go about 4 trips between fish.

The final lesson I want to mention is that walleye do not like to eat on top. Yes, they will occasionally do it and I’ve caught 4 walleye that did so, but all of the others ate subsurface.  They’re not bass, folks, they’re not bass.

 

Tonight, I learned that perhaps I hadn’t learned that much.  Fall is in the air, and the leaves around Fort Collins are all yellow and falling, as are the nighttime temperatures.  The water is still fairly warm, though, and since two weeks ago two friends and I had an epic evening catching bass on Slammers, I figured I needed to head back out to the bass lake to see if I could pick up a few more.  The bass weren’t particularly big, with the largest to date only reaching 19â€, so I decided to roll swimbait “light†and throw my smaller swimbaits – 6†and 7†lures paired with the MH Okuma.

 

I arrived at the lake around 9:00 PM under a setting moon after exchanging texts with a couple of friends in hopes of getting them to join me, but they were otherwise occupied.  The wind was blowing into the shoreline and there was a thunderstorm lighting up the skies over the mountains – unsettled conditions, wind, and fish that could probably sense that winter was coming – things looked promising.  I clipped on the much abused 7†Slammer and started to walk the shoreline, casting parallel to shore half the time, and quartering away from shore the rest of the time.  I figured that I would pick up a bass here and there and get enough a fishing fix to make it through the week.

 

On my third cast, I launched the Slammer along the shoreline so that it would swim past the tip of a partially submerged rock.  As it reached the ambush point, I heard and saw a substantial surface strike, and the sound wasn’t quite bass-like – deeper, and with more “slurp!† It felt right, though, and I set the hook into a solid fish, realizing immediately that I had not hooked one of the cookie cutter 14†bass that patrol this particular shoreline by the weight of the fish and the deep bend in the MH swimbait rod.  As I worked the fish to shore, I noted that it was taking some time, and that the fish was giving deep head shakes, again, not something that bass do, but something that another of my regular swimbait targets, big walleye, are famous for.  Had I just done the unthinkable and hooked a big walleye….on a Slammer?  It was not possible – walleyes don’t like to eat on the surface and they sure as heck don’t like Slammers!  I flipped on my headlamp.

 

There, in the beam of the light, I could see my line arcing through the slightly murky water, and there, at the end of the arcing line, were the glowing eyes of a big walleye.  Holy cow!  I had hooked a big walleye on a Slammer, on the surface! I had to land this fish. I had no net.  I had not partner.  I didn't care – I got the fish into the shallows, slid her head onto shore and stepping into the water, grabbed her by the tail.  The walleye was mine, and what a walleye it was – 28†long and a very hefty 10.2 on the digital scale!  Wow!  And I’d just caught it on a Slammer.

 

 

 

I was, as my 9-year old daughter would say, giddy.  I fumbled with the camera trying to get a picture and finally got a couple of decent ones, though I couldn’t remember how to set the self-timer to try to take a picture of me and the fish.  To be honest, I was so excited and flustered that I’m surprised that I didn’t release myself back into the water and leave the walleye on land!  I did get the right creature back in the water and managed to stay mostly on land, and then, as the fish swam off, I gave a silent thanks to my dad, may he rest in peace, for having gotten me hooked on fishing so many years ago.

Three casts in, and it already was an epic night!  The lake was not known for walleye, heck, the lake wasn’t really known for largemouth of any size, but, like most lakes up and down Colorado’s Front Range, it was stocked periodically with walleye and with a mixture of forage including stocked rainbow trout, some of those walleye apparently grow to hefty sizes.

 

I kept working my way down the bank, pumped and a little shaky, as the adrenaline surge from the big ‘eye was not ebbing very quickly.  On another long cast along the shoreline, I pulled the Slammer past some vegetation and the lure got popped, this time by a small bass, maybe a 12â€.  Fun, but I was hoping for a bass with slightly heftier shoulders.  Down the bank I went, and as the moon got closer and closer to setting, I managed to pick up another little bass, perhaps a 13â€, but definitely not something to write home about.

 

Then it happened again.  The 7†Slammer was waking past another partially submerged rock when I heard another strange sounding “slurp-surge!† I set the hook and this fish immediately thrashed the water to foam as it shook its head in a futile effort to shed the twin Owner ST-36s.  That approach didn’t work, so the fish took off for deep water, peeling a good 20’ of line off the Curado 301 before the heavy drag checked its run.  I worked the fish towards shore, pretty confident that I’d hooked a 2^nd big walleye, and when it was in headlamp range, powered up the light and confirmed my suspicion.  A second big walleye, this one 26.5†and 7.9 lbs.  The epic night had just achieved lift-off!  This time I was able to use the self-timer to try to get a decent shot of the fish.

 

 

 

After that fish was released, I took stock of the situation.  I’d fished for about 1.5 hours, I’d landed 54.5 inches of walleye, on a Slammer of all things, and I’d managed to catch a couple of small bass.  The moon was now gone, and it was harder to see where I was walking.  I’d had an epic night, and nobody, nobody would blame me for calling it a night.  Okay, nobody except me – because the fishing was just too good.  I decided to work another 100 yards of shoreline, and if I didn’t catch another fish, I’d head home.

 

Fifty yards down the bank, a fish boiled on the Slammer but missed – sounded like a bass.  Then it happened again, but this time the fish found the hooks and immediately went airborne.  Bass.  Not a big fish, but what turned out to be the best of the night – right around 16â€.  It t-boned the Slammer, perhaps because it wanted to grow as quickly as possible to take itself off the menu of the dagger-toothed walleye that apparently were patrolling the same area.

 

 

A little farther down the bank (close to my 100-yard limit), I caught a much smaller bass – maybe 9†long.  As I released the little guy, I asked him what the heck he was doing cruising the shoreline when there were clearly bigger, more evil critters out there looking for tasty tidbits.  The fish didn’t answer, but since he’d whacked the Slammer, I decided to give myself another 15 – 20 yards of bank, just in case one more fish wanted to play.

 

The cast along my “bonus†section of bank landed about 10 feet from shore, as far down the bank as I could launch it.  I felt a loop of line on the spool, so I manually stripped off enough line to clear the loop, then reeled the loose line back under tension until I felt the weight of the Slammer.  Then I started the retrieve in earnest, peering intently into the darkness at the slight surface disturbance that was being illuminated by the starlight.  It was hard to see the wake at the far end of the cast, but by the time the lure was halfway back, I could see the wake clearly, which is why I also saw a much bigger wake come charging in from the deeper water and intercept the Slammer in a frothy detonation that would have made a striper proud.  Big bass?  One of the rare wiper that used to be common in the lake?  Whatever it was, it was big, it was pissed, and it was rolling and thrashing on the surface.  When that didn’t work, the fish ran down the bank, but I was able to coax it back towards me, and snapped on my headlamp.  The fish felt like a big walleye, but three big walleye in one night? Yup, when the fish came into range, the glowing eye shone back at me with a baleful light, and I again was faced with the task of landing a big fish, in the dark, without a net.

 

I managed to get the fish one shore, this time only getting 1 sock and shoe wet (they were already wet, so I’m not even sure that the re-immersion counts) and weighed and measured the fish.  Slightly shorter at 26â€, and lighter, at only 6.9 – 7.2 lbs (the scale was bouncing around).  This fish had t-boned the bait and as I tried to unhook it, my fingers brushed against the protruding canines thus slicing a half inch-long section of my middle finger open like the finest fillet knife would. Whoops!  I managed to set up the camera for a quick picture – the blood on the fish is a mix of hers and mine.

 

 

She swam off strong and I sat back to contemplate what had happened over the last 2.5 hours.  I’d caught not one, not two, but three trophy-sized walleye.  I’d caught them on swimbaits.  I’d caught them on a Slammer on the surface! It had been, without a doubt, the most surprising night walleye encounter I’ve had.  I called it a night, and walked back to the truck, pinching myself a couple of times to see if I was dreaming. I’m still not convinced that Slammers are the highest percentage swimbait for walleyes, but tonight conditions were just right, and the 7†Slammer was lethal.  I will definitely be throwing it some more in the near future!

[bigpoppabass]

Wow, amazing report...congrats. Slammers out here in ne dont catch many pickeral, toothy smaller pike like fish and that is a good thing.....there is a famous slammet thrower out here dave l and his motto is "no memory."

[bigpoppabass]

Moonset bite you dony here that mentioned enough...btw, do you think the beaten up slammer is now the trigger? That bait looks like a woundes beaten up fish for sure.

[northeast_trev]

Crazy story Doc. Nice work! Those are some great looking fish

[YELOSUB]

Another awesome fishing story, which have become a standard from you...Thanks for sharing, I love to read them....Also congrats on a great evening of fishing...Tim

[ncstatefisher]

that is phenomenal, great work!!!

[FishDr]

Thanks everyone!  It was a night to remember for sure, though I got one of the weights wrong - the second fish was 7.7, not 7.9, according to the notes I had on my phone.  I tried to edit the post but it wouldn't let me...but I'm admitting it here.  

[bassbass]

Awesome report and great fish.

[mnbassman23]

Awesome write up! I have targeted walleyes for many years and caught plenty of them bass fishing but never have I seen one caught on a top water. Well done! 

[Rogervang]

epic night! congrats on your first slammer/topwater walleyes. these fishes are diff. on my list.

[danthefisherman]

awesome!

[igl00jx]

I'll be out on the river for eyes. Was hoping to bring only one setup, but after reading this, will bring two now lol

Great catches Doc!

[flaswimbaiter]

Wow Dr., that's an epic night, congrats. It's always awesome when you discover a new method or when the fish prove you wrong by doing some thing they don't nomrmally do. I can't believe the weight of those fish, they were thick.

 

That's how I felt when I tossed a 316 gill at Peacocks, they were not supposed to hit big baits like that, but I caught one and lost thre others.

[Ong Jim]

Great persistence and great write up. Thanks for sharing your adventure.

[sharpswmb8r]

Awesome stuff, great read thank you.