08-23-2003, 08:47 PM
[cool]That was a short question, but there ain't a good short answer. The simple response is that walleyes are very susceptible to flies...but not size 20 emergers. They want meat. Think heavily dressed streamers and wooly buggers in four or five inch lengths.
The current low water situation makes all of my past experience pretty well obsolete for present application. But, I will share what I have found in the past and you can try to apply it where you can.
First, do not think walleye on flies in deep water. That means you will do better in the spring and fall, when they are near shore and in less than eight or ten feet of water. Otherwise, you need high density full sinking line and more trolling than casting.
For most walleye on the fly situations, you should use a minimum of a six weight outfit. An eight is better, for throwing the heavier lines required to handle the bigger flies. You can land any walleye in Utah on a six weight, but you will beat yourself to death trying to punch out casts with big flies, especially if there is wind involved. And walleyes bite better when there is at least a "fishing riffle" on the water. If you can find waves and muddy water on the windward shoreline, so much the better.
Don't worry about long tapered leaders. Six feet of good six pound mono will work, although you can turn the leader over better with a couple of stepped down sizes ahead of a two foot tippet.
Colors? In my wooly buggers I use about 4 main colors...black, white, chartreuse and purple. Purple? Yep. One of the most overlooked walleye colors there is. In streamers...to imitate shad, baby carp, white bass, perch or sunfish...add some flashes of silver or gold. A wisp of bright red or orange in the tail is sometimes a nice touch too.
Hook sizes? Think big. Smallest would be a size 2. Biggest might be a long shanked 3/0 forged hook. Keep the points sharp and touch them up once in awhile, especially when ticking the rocks...as you should be.
If I know I will be fishing in waters with a lot of rocks and/or stickups, I will tie up some flies with mono weed guards. I have attached a diagram at the bottom. If you use a good stiff mono loop from the eye around behind the hook, you can snake the flies through the nastiest reeds and rocks...but when a wallie munches it, the hooks will do their job.
In the shallow waters around Lincoln Beach, and other spots on Utah Lake, you can use a sink tip line and not weight the flies. I prefer an almost neutral buoyancy in the fly, and often the strike comes while it is motionsless or slowly sinking. For probing deeper, like around the rocks at Willard, you might want to throw a full sinking line...or troll from your float tube using the sinking line.
Retrieves can vary from short stripping movements to using the rod to do a slow sweep...either to the side or upward...with a "shivver lift", like fishing a damsel nymph on Henry's Lake.
During the month of June, at the mouth of the Jordan River (in years when they do not have it dammed off), the big post-spawn female walleyes stack up to intercept small white bass and mud cats being sucked out of the lake and down the river. They absolutely pound big black marabou jigs, so I tried fishing them with a steelhead shooting head and black wooly buggers...cast upstream and allowed to swim naturally downstream. The result was probably one of the largest catches of walleyes on flies...ever. I released over twenty large 'eyes and kept what was a limit in the seventies...of six fish. The largest was over 10 pounds.
I have done quite well on Willard with lighter colored flies...white wooly buggers and streamers, blue-backed "over and under" shad flies, and yellow or chartreuse with a red heed. Oh yeah, they work best for walleyes when you can keep the pesky cats and wipers from intercepting them.
I got into 'eyes on flies only once on Yuba. During the pre spawn period, right after iceout, I fished a couple of little coves and points around the narrows with a black wooly bugger with a chartreuse marabou tail. That combo had been working in plastics, so I tried the flies and they worked well too. The rest of the year the fish were generally too deep for effective fly fishing.
Deer Creek is tough enough to fish with worm harness, jigs and all the other standard walleye stuff. However, I have taken 'eyes from Deer Creek on flies...but only while deep trolling flies for big browns...on spinning gear and a section of lead core line.
I'll finish with another short statement. If you can find the walleye, in fishable water, they will hit flies as well as anything...if not better.
[signature]
The current low water situation makes all of my past experience pretty well obsolete for present application. But, I will share what I have found in the past and you can try to apply it where you can.
First, do not think walleye on flies in deep water. That means you will do better in the spring and fall, when they are near shore and in less than eight or ten feet of water. Otherwise, you need high density full sinking line and more trolling than casting.
For most walleye on the fly situations, you should use a minimum of a six weight outfit. An eight is better, for throwing the heavier lines required to handle the bigger flies. You can land any walleye in Utah on a six weight, but you will beat yourself to death trying to punch out casts with big flies, especially if there is wind involved. And walleyes bite better when there is at least a "fishing riffle" on the water. If you can find waves and muddy water on the windward shoreline, so much the better.
Don't worry about long tapered leaders. Six feet of good six pound mono will work, although you can turn the leader over better with a couple of stepped down sizes ahead of a two foot tippet.
Colors? In my wooly buggers I use about 4 main colors...black, white, chartreuse and purple. Purple? Yep. One of the most overlooked walleye colors there is. In streamers...to imitate shad, baby carp, white bass, perch or sunfish...add some flashes of silver or gold. A wisp of bright red or orange in the tail is sometimes a nice touch too.
Hook sizes? Think big. Smallest would be a size 2. Biggest might be a long shanked 3/0 forged hook. Keep the points sharp and touch them up once in awhile, especially when ticking the rocks...as you should be.
If I know I will be fishing in waters with a lot of rocks and/or stickups, I will tie up some flies with mono weed guards. I have attached a diagram at the bottom. If you use a good stiff mono loop from the eye around behind the hook, you can snake the flies through the nastiest reeds and rocks...but when a wallie munches it, the hooks will do their job.
In the shallow waters around Lincoln Beach, and other spots on Utah Lake, you can use a sink tip line and not weight the flies. I prefer an almost neutral buoyancy in the fly, and often the strike comes while it is motionsless or slowly sinking. For probing deeper, like around the rocks at Willard, you might want to throw a full sinking line...or troll from your float tube using the sinking line.
Retrieves can vary from short stripping movements to using the rod to do a slow sweep...either to the side or upward...with a "shivver lift", like fishing a damsel nymph on Henry's Lake.
During the month of June, at the mouth of the Jordan River (in years when they do not have it dammed off), the big post-spawn female walleyes stack up to intercept small white bass and mud cats being sucked out of the lake and down the river. They absolutely pound big black marabou jigs, so I tried fishing them with a steelhead shooting head and black wooly buggers...cast upstream and allowed to swim naturally downstream. The result was probably one of the largest catches of walleyes on flies...ever. I released over twenty large 'eyes and kept what was a limit in the seventies...of six fish. The largest was over 10 pounds.
I have done quite well on Willard with lighter colored flies...white wooly buggers and streamers, blue-backed "over and under" shad flies, and yellow or chartreuse with a red heed. Oh yeah, they work best for walleyes when you can keep the pesky cats and wipers from intercepting them.
I got into 'eyes on flies only once on Yuba. During the pre spawn period, right after iceout, I fished a couple of little coves and points around the narrows with a black wooly bugger with a chartreuse marabou tail. That combo had been working in plastics, so I tried the flies and they worked well too. The rest of the year the fish were generally too deep for effective fly fishing.
Deer Creek is tough enough to fish with worm harness, jigs and all the other standard walleye stuff. However, I have taken 'eyes from Deer Creek on flies...but only while deep trolling flies for big browns...on spinning gear and a section of lead core line.
I'll finish with another short statement. If you can find the walleye, in fishable water, they will hit flies as well as anything...if not better.
[signature]