Fishing Forum

Soon I will be heading down to the river hunting for walleye with my fly rod. Talked to the guy at gander mountain and he suggested I tried wooly buggers and clouser minnoes was wondering if any one had any other suggestions on what flies and color combinations i should try.
[signature]

[center][font "Poor Richard"][green][size 3][cool]Hi there gurthgul - I have never fished for Walleyes [can't seem to find them in SoCal] however, I would venture to say a Clouser Minnow should be an effective streamer as would a Woolly Bugger. CMs with a white bottom and greenish top would be a good color to start with. The CM will turn over so as the hook faces up. This is caused by the weight dumbbell eyes flipping the fly over. Although you can't see the hook on the CM below it is facing point up. Maybe we have some swatters around who have FFed for Walleyes and can offer you their expertise. Good luck. [/size][/green][/font]
[/center]
[font "Poor Richard"][green][size 3]Hey there T4M this is one of the flies I tied for you.Have them in different color. All will have a white bottom.[/size][/green][/font]
[signature]

[]That's a good fly for Walleye's DryRod!
Excellent color and layout.
Mooch it at different speeds, but more slowly than quick darts. keep it down in the grass.
Use your good sinking line. It's not unusual to find them down below 20' in the grass. Just off the edge of a submerged, flat, shallow, ledge.
Wooly buggers about an inch and a half long, and Clousers about minnow size. ( I lost my Wooley buggers to Pike)
Flatten your barbs. It makes life easier if you have to release one, or have to deal with a Slimey Pike.

Gurt, you may get Pike where you get Walleye. When you lose a couple of flies to those Pesky Pike, you'll tie on a short section of 10 or 15 Lb steel leader.

The Pike will hit right at the boat. When you aint lookin' and dont expect it. Shock? Hoo boy whatta shock!
With a loud Swhsheees and a helluva jerk on the line....your heart will jump along with the rest of your body.
If you could have a camera on yourself when it happens, you'd make "America's funniest home videos"

PS: On Pike. I watched a guy do three Pike on the Cutting board.
He wound up with four nice sections of boneless meat from each Pike in about Five minutes for each fish.
[signature]

[font "Poor Richard"][green][size 3][cool]Thanks Thudpucker for your input. Another nice thing about the Clouser Minnow is that with the hook facing up there is less of a tendency for it to catch on the grass. Sort of a weedless streamer but not quite. Can't imagine catching a walleye on a fly rod. A lot of bang for the effort. What weight rod are you using? 8 or a 9wt?[/size][/green][/font]
[signature]

actually i will be doing most of my walleye fishing in a shallow rocky river(averaging from 1' to 4 or 5 with holes 8' or 9' just below a damn. I guess it's about what most people would consider a large trout stream. Never really heard of people catching pike but that doesn't necessarily mean they aren't there. there are lots of small mouth, white , bass, crappie, channel cat, flatheads, large carp and spoonbill catfish. In the spring walleye in the 8 or 9 lbs range are abundant, but low to mid 20inch range are common year round. Until deciding to try fly fishing for the i mainly used a pair of 1" whiptail crappie jigs with 1/16 oz heads and the ocassional rooster tail.
[signature]

I was fishing in Manitoba.
They have a slot limit on the lake. Too small or too large, you put em' back.
I got several Walleye. One or two were inside the slot. I could have kept them.
Nice fish to play though. Just about right for the 8wt rod.

The Pike had a limit too. You couldn't keep anything over 35".
Flatten the barbs.
I will have to say that a 35" Pike on that 8Wt Graphite Sage was getting close to the limit of that rod's elasticity.

The Fish n' game folks came around in bunches. Sometimes three in a bunch. Always at least two. One time Five of them, including two women came by. They ate dinner with us and went on, into the darkness. Brave, capable folks.

I had my Sage 8Wt, 9' and used a heavy fast sinking, weight forward line.
I started out with a 5lb tippet. Soon went to a home-made (I tied it up in the boat using barrell knots) leader with a 15# Tip.

That stopped the steady stream of lost flies to Walleye.
All the flies I used (that caught walleys) were Clousers and Wooly buggers. The Hooks were all tied much like DryRods fly. The Hook was up in the skirt.
I believe I missed a lot of strikes for that reason. But even strikes are part of the fun of it all.

Then the Pike began to catch my flies at the boat.
I had to scavenge some stuff out of another guy's tackle to put the braided steel leaders onto my 15Lb tippet.

It all sounds kinda Hokey. I always seem to wind up learning everything the hard way.

That much heavy, resistive stuff on the rod makes for the sound of an incoming Eagle going by your ear when you make an uncooridinated cast.

I cannot, in all my days on the water, with all the in-decent things that have happend, remember a bad day fishing!
I can remeber a lot of fisihing days when it was made all the better by getting inside a nice warm cabin and into some dry clothes.
[signature]

[center][font "Poor Richard"][green][size 3][cool]Hey there Thudpucker I could almost visualize myself helping you to net one of those suckers. Sound cool.[/size][/green][/font][/center]
[signature]

[cool]DryRod, we need a couple of young guys. Grand kids who can drive and would be interested in a long trip.
You and I could point and direct the work.[mad] They'd do all the work, the cooking and all the boat handling.[laugh]
We'd just fish.[]
A net with a five foot handle is the cat's meow for that stuff.

Even though the lakes in Canada are huge and have lots of fish, I believe our lakes have more.

It was kind of a rare experience to be on a lake for nearly two weeks and only see a half dozen other boats.
[signature]

sounds like lots of fun. just got home from getting some supplies to tie up some clouser minnows. wish me luck.
[signature]

Those Walleyes acutally constitute the need for extra protection on a float tube as well. They are quite spiney, and as we have all figured out at one time or another, "Needles and Inflated objects don't mix".


I do believe the the CA DFG had contemplated planting Walleyes at one time but they could only do it in a few lakes that support the cooler temps that the Walleye need to spawn in.

As far as good flies for the Walleyes, CMs are nice,as well as Wooley Buggers(aforementioned) Bunny Divers, Olived Matukas, or just about any minnow replica or larger streamer.

If you are tying your own, just add a little more Flashabou into the body of it. Flourescent orange, Pink or Red will tend to set them off just a little bit more.[cool]
[signature]