How fish strike your bait

[Hutch]

I known walleye strike your live bait rigs with inhaling action similar to a vaccum....question is do they attack body baits the same way ? my thoughts on the subject that a 4 inch body bait would give more resistance when inhaled and result in short strikes
How do Bass attack presentation is it similar to walleye ?

[Walleye Express]

Hey Hutch.
I'm thinking the (feeding mood/attitude) of the fish, rather walleye or not, is the determining factor on the strike meator. I've witnessed some savage strikes and misses from walleye at night while casting near and around lighted areas. They always seem to slash from the side at the crank bait after they catch up with it. The end result most often leads to the subject we beat to death on this board about foul hooked fish. Even with live bait, When the fish are finicky, I've had them grab the tail of the minnow and simply start to swim off with it, versus taking it in. I thinks you know all this stuff already, but good chat starter.

[WAeyes]

I don't know exactly but I will share a little experience I saw a few years ago. I was in the Cabelas store in Owatonna sp.? one time and they had recently fed the walleyes in one of the aquariums. All the minnows were gone except for one...he was hanging half way out of a 6-7lber's mouth sideways. I don't know if that meant the fish attacked it from the side or it turned the minnow in it's mouth that way. Anyway, it sure was cool watching that fatty swimming around teasing the rest of the fish in the aquarium. That walleye never swallowed that minnow the whole time I was in the store.

[water_wolf]

Hutch,
This wont answer your question, but I attended a fishing seminar some 10 years back put on by Babe Winkelman. He had a video of a walleye sucking in a shiner. They slowed it down to the point where you see the walleye open his mouth, his gills flare and you see the shiner get sucked in with such a vacuum that the scales are left behind to just flutter to the bottom. Definitely cool.


Rich Ferguson

[Chad]

It depends on the mood of the fish and how much effort they make to eat the bait.

The more surface area the bait has the easier it is to inhale.

The more weight the bait has the more difficult it is to inhale.

This is why sometimes it is wife to put on a twister tail. Adds little weigt but lots of surface area.

[SoDakBoy]

Walleyes normally inhale a bait, but they can also strike at fast moving baits like plugs.

Bass, on the other hand, bite or strike a bait more than inhaling it. Thinking about how a bass nails a top water plug gives you a pretty good idea.

[DarrenB]

I agree that a lot of it depends on the fish's mood, season and water conditions and especially competition for forage. There's no real way to determine how a fish is going to eat your offering, other than going by past experience or using your knowledge of typical seasonal walleye behavior in your area. This past fall I was doing a lot of walleye fishing with the old baby thundersticks and the fish were slamming the lures any which way they could get them, even from the front of the lure. Over the winter in the colder water I was still catching walleyes on these lures but they were finicky and were more difficult to catch. really had to work the bait, and most walleyes came after a long pause in which the Tstick was submerged for a while and held motionless. No real strike felt, and only knew there was a fish on because of the heavy "weighty" feeling. After reeeling the fish in, the majority of them had the middle and rear treble hooks in their mouth with only the head of the lure sticking out. This indicated to me that they were probably inhaling the lure on the pause. 2 separate incidents/times of the year where they were biting differently.

[Borch]

I've had many nights trolling cranks where we miss a lot of eyes and the ones we catch are hooked on the side of the face. Like they are slapping it with the side of their head to stun it before they eat it. Anyone have any ideas as to if this is why they're doing this?

[CarpetBagger]

Walleyes seem to hit different presentations differently in my book. For instance, if im jiggin a twister tail tipped with a minnow they seem to do the old dead weight head shake. however if im using a 3 way with a worm, it seems the fish are a bit more "lazy" and are just nipping at the bait and u really have to have patience and wait for him to get it all in his mouth before you set that hook.

Now if im trolling, say with dipsys and harnesses on erie, or tots on pymie, u get to see your rod almost jump out of the holder. It seems walleyes will just simply crush a moving bait, especially if you are trolling and a nice 4-8lb fish catches sight of your lure.

I've had some nice 8-9lb eyes really hop a dipsy rod trollin erie, and i have had some nice 3-4lb eyes in the past few weeks on pymie just nip at the worm on my jig and i just had to feed him bail and then set the hook and feel the weight.

CB

[Erie Drifter]

I do a lot of slip bobber fishing on Pike Lake in the UP,You can always tell if it's a Pike or an Eye, When a Northern hits the bait the bobber goes down so fast you can hear it pop, When a Walleye takes it the bobber slowly moves accross the surface and gradually goes under, really cool to watch.

I'm heading up there Sunday for a week, Can't wait to hit the road.

Bill W. (War-N-Peace-ch 68)

[Erie Drifter]

I just remembered a fishing show I saw a couple years ago about Pike and Walleye, they had a shallow tank with a camera pointing down at the top of the fish and lured them to strike.

The Pike would swim directly at the bait and make an "S" shape with it's body and then straighten out real fast, It was amazing how fast that sucker moved doing this, sorta like a spring, had the bait before you knew it.

The walleye would almost seem to be swimming past the bait and then would turn the front half of it's body at almost 90 degrees facing the bait and quickly straighten it's tail, not as fast as the pike but still pretty impressive.

Bill W. (War-N-Peace-ch 68)

[lunker99]

As most of you have already stated, the activity level of the fish and the presentation dictate how the fish will strike. That goes for most species of gamefish. When using jigs or plastic worms bass are more likely to inhale the bait, just like walleye do when you're bouncing a jig or other slow moving baits in front of them that they get a good chance to look over. A fast presentation on the other hand, they're more likely to have to make a reaction strike, and that also goes for bass as well as the walleye.

[spebley]

They bite similar to some degree. Walleye are usually more passive. Bass will inhale a bait everybit as fast as a walleye although, bass almost always eat a bait head first. This is not always true with the walleye. I did a few seminars at the tank at bass pro last year and there were both walleye and bass in there. The walleye would usually come from behind the bait and suck it in and the bass either came from the side or underneath. I've let a walleye take a bait as long as 5 minutes and still miss the fish(not babies either). Never seen a bass wait that long.

[rich]

i have been trolling rapalas at night and most of the fish where hooked on the front or middle hook. that would seem that they are hitting them from the side. gooooood fishing

[Hutch]

Thanks for all the repies and info ...I have a better understnding
when fish are less active it appears a slow approach with jig and abait to allow them to inhale the presentation .When real active and aggresive they will attack the body bait similar to a bass or pike .
Perch must inhale there prey similar to walleye ( same family)
this must account for short strikes on this specie also. Is this right