Willard Bay Walleye?

[fishinfool]

Out of all the walleye fisherman in here what bait performed best at willard last year,Dont need to add color,but would be appreciated.I hear the southwest corner is good but why isnt the island prime walleye habitat,Read alot of reports about the southeast corner of the dike is good also,give me a clue on what to do and where to fish.

Thanks for any info.

PS.at this time.WALLEYE 1,Tony 0,havent even caught one by accident out of that pond.LOL.

Later,

Tony[]
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[HFT]

You always here about that corner because the access is easy. The island can be very effective,but I generally here about it from the trollers.Early season I hear alot from the outlet bank and the backside by the light pole. 3"grubs in pearl or white are the most poular,on 1/4 oz heads,crawfish smelly jelly also.
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[PREDATOR]

Now thats a heck of a question. Unfortunatley inmy mind there is a zillion answers. Best bait, depends on time of year and walleye location. Why is the island not prime eye habitat? In my opinion, it has to do with two things. First, you can catch eyes off the island because at times the baitfish hold there. but the bait fish are the reason that the island can be spotty. The eyes will follow the shad. If the shad are relating to the island, there may be eyes there too. Second, time of year. walleye tend to spawn in the same areas, the island doesnt seem to be one of the prime areas, you occasionally hear of a guy catching one or two off the island but its not the same as others. The rest of the year refer back to the shad. This also leads into your bait selection. Time of day and location tend to be the best methods to determine lure selection. For me and my limited knowledge, on willard mornings seem to be worm harness country. evenings cranks, and spawn times jigs or lindy rigs depending on location. Basically its just too broad a subject and requires more on the water assesment to be accurate. If the weather stays this way, I will have my boat out on willard chasing the prespawn eyes in a couple weeks.
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[TubeDude]

[cool] Willard walleyes are a lot like the tale of the 5 blind men describing an elephant. Each touches a different part of the elephant, and each has a different impression of what an elephant is.

I have caught 'eyes from Willard every month of the year...in soft water and hard. They are never what you could call predictable, but there are things you can do to increase your percentages and minimize your frustration. That's true of walleyes wherever they are found.

During the year, beginning with rising temps in February and March, the small males get nervous (prespawn) and begin moving into the rocks around shore. They can be taken on a variety of plastics, spinners and crankbaits. Once the spawning period gets closer, you occasionally hang a large female, even though they are not as aggressive as the males. Their bellies are swollen with roe and they aren't thinking about anything but dumping their loads.

Post spawn, which typically begins around the first to middle of May, sees the females chowing down at all hours of the day...on some very large food items. Used to find "floaters" with large crappies stuck in their throats. Now they are happy with the large gizzard shad, when they can find them. Trolling large crank baits and plastics deep during the day, and shallower or near the rocks early and late will produce some big ones. Use whites and silvers in bright conditions...yellows or chartreuse in low light or after dark.

Once the summer temps take over, the walleyes still feed, but only occasionally, and usually after dark. During the daytime they lay on the bottom of the deepest and coolest spots, waiting for the "Power squadrons" to get off the lake and for surface temps to cool a couple of degrees. The last hour before daybreak is about the best time to toss lures. Otherwise, drag a traditional worm harness at paint drying speed.

Around the first to middle of September, when the first autumn storms start blowing in off Salt lake, find a windblown shoreline, with muddy water, and pitch some small black jigs. These imitate the small catfish the walleyes feed upon at this time.

By early October, the water temps are chilling down again. Smaller plastics work better than large hardbaits or large plastics. Go to 1 1/2" to 2" stuff, on 1/16 ounce heads. A red head and a white body works well in the daytime. Use a hot red head and chartreuse sparkle early and late...and go to a 3" chartreuse after dark...until the cold sends you home.

You can catch walleyes through the ice at Willard, but not if you have a lot of company. In the shallow waters of the marinas, I always tried to be the first one on the ice, and drilled the holes with a hand auger, as quietly as possible. If I could remain quiet for awhile, without others stomping out on the ice, I would jig a small silver spoon or tube jig, to catch a few small males, and an occasional female. As soon as the sun got bright, or someone else stomped out to find out how I was doing, that was the end of the walleye action.

I never used sonar while I fished Willard, and I never had any success in finding walleyes under the ice in the open lake. However, if you have a good underwater topo map, and a GPS, and a sonar, you should check all the high points and the low points. they will usually congregate around some kind of structure during the winter, and only move if driven off by undue noise and activity.

Your three minutes are up. Please deposit some other responses.
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[FISHNFOOL102]

[]Thanks guys,I will try some of your advice this spring,Have you ever noticed that when some one figures out the walleye in a lake,Its hard to get them to give you a striaght answer,LOL.

Thanks TUBE,Predator,HFT.for posting.I appreciate all the good advice.

I have caught walleye from,Deer Creek,Yuba,Utah Lake but have not found the lure that they want at willard,I would think that one would hit my gold and black walleye diver,or shad raps,raplas,etc.Have any of you tried a striat white spinner rig,Thinking of trying to make something up.silver bead then white beads with small double blades paited white with some dots paited on them.LOL.

Thanks Again.

TIGHT LINES,Tony[]
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[Kent]

[size 1]"Have you ever noticed that when some one figures out the walleye in a lake,Its hard to get them to give you a striaght answer,LOL." Your comment reminds me of a trip that I made to Starvation summer before last. I was going to take two of my grand kids fishing for a couple of hours, and I noticed a couple older gentlemen filleting some fish at the cleaning station. I wandered over there hoping to get some tips on where we might try to catch a few fish, and about all I could get out of them was they caught them in the water. It looked like they had a limit of walleye, and none of the fish were very large, so I didn't understand why they weren't more willing to help a fisherman out on a new body of water. They must have realized that the fish were stunted in there and it wouldn't hurt if we caught a few of them.[/size]

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[TubeDude]

[cool]Hey, Tony, it's hard to go wrong with basic white almost any time of the year. I fish mostly plastics...twisters in 3" and 4", and shad in pearl or white about the same size. The one thing I do, if I can't find shad bodies with a blue back, is mark one on them with a permanent marker. That color combo works especially well during the spawn. In the fall, a red line down the back seems to work better.

If you are going to put dots or eyes on your white rigs, make them hot red. That is a deadly color not only in Willard, but elsewhere too.

The white spinners should work very well both during the post spawn and the fall fiesta. I have had some success with small males along the rocks during the true spawn, using slow fluttering small light spoons, in silver with a bit of blue on them. Used some Vibrax silver spinners with blue prism tape strips on the outside of the blades too. The key is to find something with good action at slow speed, that is light enough to stay above the rocks.

One other trick I used to good effect was building a spinning rod from a 9' fly rod blank...I think it was for an 8 weight line. I was able to fish from the rocks and reach out to retrieve the lures at just the right distance from the rocks. Got fewer snags and it was a lot of fun fighting the bigger fish on that rod. It later served as a "bubble chucker" for throwing bubbles and flies clear across Deer Creek and Strawberry.

After the main spawn, think AFTER DARK. Hit the water just at sundown and fish for the next two hours...or get there before daybreak and fish until the sun gets too bright. Of course, whenever the wind is piling waves on shore, fish the muddy water. I used to position my tube about 30 feet out from the shore, near the south marina, and toss 3" yellow twisters with dark red heads during slop and chop conditions. Sometimes the bigger fish would have their noses almost right on the rocks. Got lots of strikes within a couple of seconds of lure splash down.

Rapalas, rattletraps and other hardbaits will all work at times. The Producer Prism Shads have proven effective on walleyes as well as wipers. But, there is one color Rapala I do not think I have ever seen anyone else throw in Utah, and it works well for several species...walleyes included. That is the bright orange model, with a gold stripe and a white belly. Use the size 7 or 5 countdown...in regular or Shad Rap. It works especially well in the low light or discolored water situations. Big browns also find it attractive...both in streams and lakes.

Well, that might not be much, but it's as much as I can dredge out of my feeble rememberies at present. Here's a pic of a couple of average fish, from the "good old days" out of the south marina.


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[PREDATOR]

Some people are just like that kent. Everything is too precious. Too much mindset that thier own little fishing world is the only one on the planet. Thats why we get a ton of lookers here who dont care to register and share. The world is full of takers willing to recieve and benefit from everyone else, but not willing to give and contribute themsleves. Its just too bad these people cant see the broader picture and realize that helping out thier fellow anglers increases support for the sport we all love so much. In a world where sportsmen are a dying breed, selfishness only contributes to our death, not our growth.

Well off my soap box. In reply to the white spinner question, I have never used the silver and white combo, I have a white hatchet harness that I have used at willard. I have caught cats and wipers on it but no eyes yet.
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[Boatiac]

Hello all. I've just been a lurker for the last couple weeks since I found this site. But this thread made me need to relate.

Couple years ago my wife and I were on a fishing trip to the Gorge for kokes. First day out we fished all the usual spots and got nothing all day. We came in late in the afternoon, as I was wiping down our boat my wife noticed some guys at the cleaning station so she went over to get a look at their bounty. They had several very nice kokes, she told the guy that we had just been out all day and not even a hit, she asked where he caught the ones he had, his reply " out there in the lake", then she asked him what he was using, his reply " a silver thingy with different color dots". Now I had no idea of the conversation till afterwards, but I knew something was up when I noticed her walking back to the boat and stopping and turning and saying " You A__ H____!!! (So proud of her)LOL

It just amazes me how some people are so unwilling to share information.

So far during my lurking I have been very impressed with the info sharing that takes place here on this site, KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!!!

For those that are interested there is another site that is full of people that are willing to share the shirt off their back when needed. I dont know how to do the link thing but the address is [url "http://www.waynesword.com. "]www.waynesword.com [/url]

(wow, guess it did it for me) It deals mostly with Lake Powell, but if you need info on anything and someone knows the answer they will give it.

Again, awesome site!!

Mike (Boatiac)
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[IceFishingGod]

In case you never have figured out the Koke thing at the Gorge, I'll hook you up. The IFG is scared of liquid ice, but, those big Kokes call my name every Labor Day weekend and I just can't resist. From what I've seen most people on this site share info with everyone. I like this site! I think you will too, welcome aboard.

IFG

[Boatiac]

Thanks IFG for the offer, I will take you up on that one day. We are also Gorge, Labor Day regulars. Havent missed one in 11 years. We put up at Lucerne. Have done fair in the past, but last year we got skunked, 2 small macs in 4 days. Turns out out we were going about 20 feet too deep for the kokes.

Mike (Boatiac)
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[DennisW]

The uniqe thing about Willard 'eyes that makes fishing for them different from any other Utah waters is that they prey on shad. So you won't catch them using the same techniques you use at other local waters. In Willard, the 'eyes relate to the shad, which means that the walleyes suspend in the water column.

In the spring, the spawning 'eyes are looking for gravel with current. But the rest of the soft water period, if you want to find the walleyes, you've first got to find the shad. And one thing I do different than Tube Dude, probably due to differences in horsepower, is that later in the year I use bigger baits. In nature all the small young-of-the-year have grown and the remaining baitfish are big--so I fish with big baits. And since fall is classic trophy walleye time, well, I want a big bait to catch big fish! These piggies were caught in Nov. [center][/center]

[FISHNFOOL102]

Nice fish! Dennis and Tube.

Tube answered the question on the color white and pearls work great,Is the bait you using white also,got a good selection of baits,have used white alot,gold and black,blue and white,Dont understand why I havent acceidently hooked into one yet,need some locations to try,and need some lessons on jigging up walleye,the rigging is not working for me there,tried alot of baits,but must not be what they want,Did it take you guys a few years to figure out where they were?

Find the shad is a good answer but they are all over the lake,not just in one spot,I see terns and seagulls busting them from one side to the other,LOL.

If any of you want to meet me up there,I have a good boat and would even bring lunch,LOL.

TIGHT LINES.

Tony[cool]
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[wiperhunter2]

So Dennis how big is the walleye you are holding in your left hand? You caught two big walleye in one day? WH2
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[IceFishingGod]

I see your two and raise you ten. Bean and I got these about 400 million years ago.

[wiperhunter2]

OK IFG, you can tell me the truth, you did not catch all those walleye in Willard did you? Or even in Utah? you can tell me!!
WH2
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[IceFishingGod]

Lake Erie, off Lake City Pennslyvania, the second trench, 69' of water, August of 1995. I can't remember my wifes birthday but I remember every fish I catch. Funny ain't it?

IFG

[wiperhunter2]

NICE FISH IFG. WH2
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[TubeDude]

[cool] Well, if you wanna go back a few years, to the days when there were no size limits on walleye in Utah Lake, here is a limit of 'eyes caught from my trusty donut. Oh yeah, I caught more than twenty on that day...a great postspawn feeding binge at the mouth of the Jordan.


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[Hellsangler69]

Nice fish Tubedude and Icefishinggod .I'm so jealous !!
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