Walleye this time of year

[jlrjoz]

Looking to score some walleye from the SLR this fall.   Tried jet divers, big bottom bouncers With stick baits and worm rigs.    Saw some tremendous sonar screens but nothing worked! Tried trolling with current against current.  Weeds were ridiculous. Forty feet of water.     Any ideas or tips     Just east of Morristown.      Thanks guys 

[justtracytrolling]

 maybe Kevin can comment but I doubt those are walleye...if you had a pic of them with imaging, especially side imaging I could tell.  2d is absolutely worthless to me....if you ever have seen a sunken mooring on 2d or anything suspending you would never trust it again.  They should be on the bottom and eating on the bottom not suspending up there.  I wouldn't even put a line down anywhere new till I found walleye.... could be so many things keeping you from getting bit.  Like for starters they can shut off anytime and you simply cannot catch em till they turn back on....like here the Larry is one tough walleye fishery and if it were easy they would be extinct as tasty as they are!!!  In August my boys were up fishing a big bass tournament and practicing and Anthony was fishing largemouths in 4 fow and got on a school of 8lb eyes in that 4 fow...they ate walleye every night... coincidentally I pulled a limit of eyes over 8lbs casting the same week here in 3 fow....temp 85!  I was hunting walleye in there they stumbled on em, but same result...water is 63 now and I can't hardly buy a casting fish but trolled 13 out of 14 yesterday all down over 30.  The one casting was on a keitech down at least 20 over 35-40.  

[Roughrider IV]

Bottom bouncing, sunset into dark. 40-60 ft yesterday.

[jimski2]

Walleye shy away from a boat above them. No matter how deep. Side planers with stick baits off the sides of the boat are the best. Long lines are a waste of time since your moving boat above them sends them in a group off the where you herded them. Good luck, same as early spring trout fishing in near shore water.


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[Kevin J Legg]

Walleye shy away from a boat above them. No matter how deep. Side planers with stick baits off the sides of the boat are the best. Long lines are a waste of time since your moving boat above them sends them in a group off the where you herded them. Good luck, same as early spring trout fishing in near shore water.


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Don’t believe you will have much success with side planer fishing the river as the bottom contour changes continually and current also must be dealt with. Boat control is critical and often you need to be right on a contour break. I have had some excellent nights with long-lining deep divers on the river in water from 15-25 feet and sometimes much deeper catching suspended fish. I have all caught them in even shallower water on longlines.
Riggers and bottom bouncers as well as jigging all are go to methods on the river with the boat passing directly over the fish. Not sure if it’s the current or the ships that travel the waters that allow these methods to be effective. That said the fish often will move off the structure after 2-3 passes.
When fishing Chaumont, Black River Bay, Bay of Quinte, Oswego or other regions of Lake Ontario boards definitely are a good way to go. However, the river with it’s unique characteristics seems to require different tactics.



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[hntnfsh00]

Thanks again KJL for the always important details. Always reading and learning for me. This time while spending spring in Fla, fishing the Gulf flats. Can't wait to get back on the SLR. 

 

[Jim K]

I've done a fair amount of diving and filming in that river over the past 2 decades. That said, we've struggled to catch fish consistently there, even though I know where they  hang. Frustrating. Anyway, I'll give you some general location advice. I bump into a lot of walleye on the edges of the main shipping channel. East of A Bay, Chippewa bay area.

 

 

[JakeyBaby]

Very cool footage!

[Prof T]

Jim, Great video. Gets my heart going for sure.

 

That being said, if a guy is planning to try downriggers here, he'd best be knowledgeable about the structure he's fishing, have good charting software, and a better depth sounder. As usual, summer fish are generally in the bottom 3 ft amongst those well documented broken boulders. Very unforgiving, but not impossible.

 

Patience is the key. 

[Kevin J Legg]

Prof T and I know from many hours of experience and donating our share of gear to the SLR river bottom.


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[Kevin J Legg]

I've done a fair amount of diving and filming in that river over the past 2 decades. That said, we've struggled to catch fish consistently there, even though I know where they  hang. Frustrating. Anyway, I'll give you some general location advice. I bump into a lot of walleye on the edges of the main shipping channel. East of A Bay, Chippewa bay area.

 

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That’s a great video and shows there is an abundance of walleyes in the river. It also shows why presentation and boat control are so important in successfully fishing here due to the quick changing rocky structure they often relate to. Many areas along the channel hold fish and we regularly catch them in similar areas but finding a workable presentation without loosing lots of gear is the issue. Definitely not easy for first timers to the area or novice fishermen.

 

 

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[Wassup8687]

I've done a fair amount of diving and filming in that river over the past 2 decades. That said, we've struggled to catch fish consistently there, even though I know where they  hang. Frustrating. Anyway, I'll give you some general location advice. I bump into a lot of walleye on the edges of the main shipping channel. East of A Bay, Chippewa bay area.
 
 

Absolutely amazing video. Thanks for sharing.

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[jperch]

On 5/7/2021 at 1:53 PM, Jim K said:

I've done a fair amount of diving and filming in that river over the past 2 decades. That said, we've struggled to catch fish consistently there, even though I know where they  hang. Frustrating. Anyway, I'll give you some general location advice. I bump into a lot of walleye on the edges of the main shipping channel. East of A Bay, Chippewa bay area.

 

 

That is indeed very cool footage and surprising to me.  I have done a fair amount of diving around Abay and I always found walleye to be so skittish that I could not get close to them.  I most often would see them on the downstream side of islands.  Pike and bass would let us approach closer than the walleye.  Thanks, really enjoyed it!