New to Walleye Fishing!!!!

[Sandy]

Good morning everyone! I'm posting for the first time and in need of expert advice chasing walleye. I'm down here in southside VA and have an 800 acre lake that has walleye in it and I have decided to learn to fish for them. I duck hunt the lake and know the contours pretty good. I picked up a book titled "Lake Erie Walleye" (by Mark Hicks) over the weekend and have gotten a bunch of info from it.

The lake I'm gonna fish has depths down to 42 feet with several humps in the lower, main lake and over near the dam is a big flat with a dropoff that goes from 3 feet down to 37 feet.

Can you guys and gals start me off in the right direction? Should I be trolling, casting, bouncing off the bottom - live bait or lures? I'd appreciate any and all info you can give me. Thanks in advance, and I'll keep everyone posted on how the learning experience goes.

Oh yeah, there isn't anyone that fishes for the walleye and I'm meeting with the local Fish biologist today to pick his brain!

Sandy

[fishnmagicin]

Here's three techniques to try. I don't know your lakes but these should work.

1) fish mid lake humps with jigs and live bait or bottom bouncers and worm harnesses.
2) troll open water with in-line planner boards with inline spinners with crawlers or cranks. Always relate to structure and fish the open water ajacent to it.
3) the most important for resovoirs with lots of structure is to find deep weed edges and work them with jigs, slip bobbers and suspending crankbaits that match the lakes main forage. I would suspect shad.

Hope this helps.

[mowallytrkr]

Fishing new water or familiar water but for the first time, cut down the number of places by finding not only structure but cover. Weeds in a lake, especially around mid-lake humps, is the first place to concentrate. Vertical jig with a roadrunner head tipped with a nice fathead minnow. You may get a few hang ups in the weeds but the moment a rig is slowly pulled from the hang, be ready when you let it drop back down. A lively bait will tell you if it survived the drag thru the weeds by tranferring a slight wiggle thru the line. If it feels "silent" pull up and re-bait but keep the weed line marked. MO

[SM]

Thanks for your tips! I actually went out on Mon. afternoon and caught 2 small ones on a mid-lake hump I new about! I'll start searching for weed lines now. Thanks again!