Catching walleyes at night....

[carmike]

Hello all,

Ok, so I have set a goal for myself this year, and I am going to need a little help if I want to accomplish it. My goal? To consistently catch after-dark walleyes on main-lake structure.

Here's the scenario: I'm fishing mud flats / main-lake structure in the summertime and catching lots of fish in the last hour or two before dark. Usually, because I'm lazy and I've already found the fish, I'll anchor on the top or bottom edge of the structure and bobber fish them.

As it gets darker, the fish start rising in the water column. I imagine they're following the bugs up as they get closer to the surface of the water. I'll start to see big arcs on the depthfinder 5, 10, 15 feet down in 25-30 ft of water. The fish I was catching near the bottom taper off and slowly disappear after the sun goes down. Once in a rare while I'll keep catching them consistently after dark, but not all that often.

I'll raise my jig or plain hook up to a foot or two above where I'm seeing the marks come through. Alas, I don't catch these fish. Ever. If you can't tell, I'm talking specifically about Mille Lacs, but I imagine this problem happens elsewhere.

My goal, of course, is to keep catching the fish I was catching. Does anyone have any techniques or tips to help me figure them out?

Sitting still doesn't work very well, so I'm thinking I should get moving. I've tried trolling cranks with very little success. So maybe I should troll some spinner rigs with crawlers attached? Toss on some snap weights, put them on boards to get them away from the boat, and cover some water?

Help!



Carmike

[Steeleyes]

Check this video out. This captain took em out night fishing of reefs in the western basin, would anchor upwind and drift themselves back just enough to cast cranks over the reef as the walleye would come in to feed off baitfish.
http://youtu.be/dxzK4i5rYuc

[carmike]

On Mille Lacs, there are certainly fish year-round on the reefs and in the weeds. They are also very difficult to target, as the weeds are thick and impossible to pull a crank through. Snap jigging does work, but it's better later in the year. I do fish the shallow rocks almost year round, but after the spring and before the fall, the fish aren't as thick in the shallows as they are out deep (unless we get a few days of big wind blowing in).

Of course, my problem is that, for all the walleyes out deep, I can't catch that many of them.