View Full Version : Thunder, lightning and walleye
scott_r
07-09-2005, 11:45 PM
What do walleye tend to do after a big storm with loud thunder and lightning strikes?? Where would you target them after a big storm??
Cheers!!
I've experienced great bites just before a storm. The trick is to get off the water before it gets to you.
scott_r
07-10-2005, 11:50 AM
Im more so interested in tactics used after a big storm has gone through. I have also had exceptional bites before a storm and like you leave when I see lightning or hear thunder.
Brian_MN
07-10-2005, 03:50 PM
My experience has been that lightning will shut down a shallow bite, but will have little effect on a deeper bite as long as the storm wasn't brought on by a cold front. On your typical mid-summer thunderstorms, yes, the bite is great right before the storm, mostly due to the rapidly changing light level (the walleyes take advantage of their sight advantage when the sky darkens up). But, if the fish you were catching before the storm were deeper than 20 feet or so, they should still be catchable after the storm passes.
karpbuster
07-12-2005, 02:36 PM
Once I was fishing the spillway at Cochiti lake and catching nice walleye with a yellow jig. I could see clouds moving in with a ton of rain (squall line) and some lightening, it followed the river and the closer it got the better the fishing. It started a down pour and I kept fishing everyone else ran for cover. As soon as it passed through the fishing died off. I had my limit and caught many more and released them, it was the best walleye fishing I have ever had. Well God's Lake Manitoba was pretty darn great, and you go fishing all day and catch more and bigger fish.
So I think it (after a storm) puts them down, my only experience all the way through from beginning to end.
karpbuster
karpbuster
07-12-2005, 02:36 PM
Once I was fishing the spillway at Cochiti lake and catching nice walleye with a yellow jig. I could see clouds moving in with a ton of rain (squall line) and some lightening, it followed the river and the closer it got the better the fishing. It started a down pour and I kept fishing everyone else ran for cover. As soon as it passed through the fishing died off. I had my limit and caught many more and released them, it was the best walleye fishing I have ever had. Well God's Lake Manitoba was pretty darn great, and you go fishing all day and catch more and bigger fish.
So I think it (after a storm) puts them down, my only experience all the way through from beginning to end.
karpbuster
I agree with Karpbuster on this one.
I have fished the walleyes shallow and deep as a storm was coming in. The closer the storm came, the better the fishing became.
However, about as soon as the storm passed, the bite quit, and in general was bad for the next three days.
However, I do agree with Brian on this one - in that typically the situation that I am talking about is the storm that is the front side of a cold front. I think that in this case, the barometer typically goes off the chart (HIGH) on the morning following a big storm with an associated cold front. I believe that it is this fast changing High that puts the eyes down for a few days, until conditions stabilize. Essentially, following the hard arrival of a cold front - the fishing is simply TOUGH for a few days. Sure you can pick up one here and there, but it is tough to get a good steady bite under these condititons.
REW
eyewinder
07-13-2005, 09:15 AM
In the Midwest, thunderstorms are a regular occurance. . .the fish don't seem to mind. An extended cold front, of course, is another matter. I used to feel really bad fishing behind a thunderstorm, but the experience that follows is not atypical.
Last Friday my partner & I delayed our early morning trip to a shallow natural lake while a thunderstorm that dropped a half-inch of rain passed through. . .breakfast was great!
We fished from 9:00 a.m. 'til 8:00 p.m. and probably caught 20 eyes; all of them over 15" and two 4-fish limits of 16" to 18" eaters -- the average size for the lake that we were fishing.
The fish ate crawlers & minnows fished behind spinners in 5 to 12 feet of water outside of weed beds.