Outboard motor triggers Walleye bites.

[mcdee]

Walleye bites seems to increase when a approaching boat gets close or passes by. Any views on this?

[K Gonefishin]

I have trolled side by side with another boat a few times not by design but noticed when I started pulling they where also, I think they scoot to either side of the boat and the boat pushes the fish into the other guys spread, this happened in huron this fall in 30 minutes we boated probably 8 fish, net's where flying on both boats.

[K Gonefishin]

I have trolled side by side with another boat a few times not by design but noticed when I started pulling they where also, I think they scoot to either side of the boat and the boat pushes the fish into the other guys spread, this happened in huron this fall in 30 minutes we boated probably 8 fish, net's where flying on both boats.

[Texeye UL]

You seem to have experienced a well known phenomena. This most often occurs when you find yourself on a hot bite, in a tournament, or on your favorite spot on your home lake. It always seems to happen under these conditions. I have experienced both my poles getting a bite at the sound of an approaching boat. Sometimes it is best to reel in your line when you see an aproaching boat so you don't have to endure the agony of the aproaching boat running over your bouy marker while checking his graph or maybe even tossing an anchor out by your bouy.

In all seriousness, this does seem to happen a lot. Maybe the walleye think their prey is going to be scared away and think they better hit while they can.

Have a good one.
Texeye

[Texeye UL]

You seem to have experienced a well known phenomena. This most often occurs when you find yourself on a hot bite, in a tournament, or on your favorite spot on your home lake. It always seems to happen under these conditions. I have experienced both my poles getting a bite at the sound of an approaching boat. Sometimes it is best to reel in your line when you see an aproaching boat so you don't have to endure the agony of the aproaching boat running over your bouy marker while checking his graph or maybe even tossing an anchor out by your bouy.

In all seriousness, this does seem to happen a lot. Maybe the walleye think their prey is going to be scared away and think they better hit while they can.

Have a good one.
Texeye

[samtrack]

Bait fish might be the key. Fished with a guide years back a couple of times who always slowly went over the area he was going to fish. He felt that it moved the bait thereby ringing the dinner bell for eyes. Normally works for me on lakes but not so on river systems:cheers:
WHaas

[KLN2]

It might seem that the motor triggers the fish to bite, but it actually scares the fish. You're probably right in the fact that the fish move away from the boat motor noise, and along with that, they were in that special feeding mode. It's amazing, when they have the feed bag on, nothing will stop the bite.

[BuckeyeMuskie]

This happens trolling pressured waters for muskies as well. Its not uncommon to catch muskies in the prop wash.

[mudpuppy]

I honestly think there's something to that. More than once I've got the biggest fish of the trip while running the big motor. The biggest walleye of my life was caught just as a big freighter (ship) was passing by me.

[fishhogg]

This is a common pattern here in Ohio in our shallower lakes for Saugeyes. There are several old hand dug reserviors that were used for water supply for the Erie canal and they are shallow mostly mud bottom. We rig our rods with 30lb test mono to help keep the baits from diving deep. Let out just enough line to keep them just off bottom, and then troll 3-6 mph and hang on. I think the fish get used to the big boats going over them and the boats also spook the bait fish and trigger the saugeyes into feeding. Try using Walli divers, Hot-n-tots, Rattle Traps, something that can be controlled at high speed. Also loosening your drags up, if your not carefull at that speed you will rip the baits out of the saugeyes mouth. Good luck, this works for us.

[Unlogged T-Mac]

Yup, and Verados trigger bites more than any other. ;) ;)

Just kidding on that. But, it does seem when you are on a good spot it never fails. You don't want company, but as soon as somebody trolls close by ...bang...one or the other of you will catch a fish.
Now you have company.
So now with two boats... a curious third boat moves in ...just to see if anything is happening.
Now there are three boats at one spot, so now.... it must be a "hot spot".....

Rrrrrrrooooooom... here comes everybody!

[orchard frank]

Close to 40 years ago on a Canadian trip, a guide had us fishing in a stretch of a big river that was deeper than the surrounding water. Caught a few here and there when he said to bring in our lines and he blasted up and down ("blasted" being a relative term, about a 16' with a 10hp) the stretch about 4 times, and believe it or not, the bite really picked up. He said "sometimes you have to wake them up" Never has worked quite that well for me since, but I mostly fish lakes now.

[Bill Krejca]

I believe there are two, maybe more reasons for increased bites due to motor activity:

1. In areas of current, there is an attraction for bait fish to hang out. Fast outboard activity can result in some of the little buggers getting sliced up by the props. Easy pickings, just wait for dinner to be served!

2. I think motor activity just wakes the fish up. Their reaction may be to just get more alert, or just to try to get out of the way. In either case, it gets them moving, and probably does not present a long term perceived danger to them.

An interesting unexplained repeating observation has been where nothing was biting, and then someone started their motor and let it idle while remaining anchored. They suddenly got the bite, while the rest of us didn't, I think indicating the fish did not suddenly move from the motor activity, but rather were drawn to it? The occurrences have been in shallow water, 4-10 ft deep, both in current and in still water. The folks who ran the motor seemed to not just stumble across this technique, but appeared to have expected the results. Ya just never get it all figured out!

[KLN2]

Fisshogg has it right, walleye can get acclimated to the boat outboard motor noise. But if they are not used to the noise, stealth will produce more fish. From my experience, never run the big motor over the fish if you don't have to, because if the bite is not there, it will be a long day.

[Pooch]

One of the Canadian lakes we fish has a necked down area that boats from both camps gather every night to fish into the late evening and night. This lake has so little pressure and how strange it seems to see eight or more boats within casting distance of each other and every boat is pulling in fish hand over fist all night long. Lots of commotion, talking between boats and boats coming and going does not even hint of slowing down the bite.

When the bite stops it stops immediately. As if you turned a switch off. Also, if someone catches a northern the walleye bite is suddenly over. Through the years I've concluded that when the bite suddenly stops that larger preditors (Big Pike) have moved in to feed. Actually I saw the largest northern of my life in that necked down area while we were hammering the walleye. And yes the bite was immediately over for the night.

Some how in my cabin feverish mind this seems to be related to your question!

Pooch

[mcdee]

I agree. The Walleye just move out when a large bleep on the sonor appears.

[EJ]

I seems to be even more noticeable on hard water. There can be no bites for an hour and a truck or ATV goes by and all of a sudden the fish are active.

EJ

[mcdee]

Drilling a few new holes seems to wake them fishes up!

[idapaul]

when i was fishing hard water i would hope for a snow machine to come by and stir things up and when they did the bite got going

[Sutsgold]

We have noticed this pattern especially when jigging. Any time a boat goes by we catch. Doubles, triples, it never fails. Also, just a few minutes before a rain hits triggers a similar pattern when jigging.