The spring season for Walleye opens on the third Saturday in May in Ontario. For the diehard fisherman, the ever changing weather is of no consequence. When the ice cold water reaches the right temperature the Walleyes go into their spring feeding frenzy. Walleye are usually caught this time of year on a 1/8oz. jig head tipped with a leech or minnow, which is "jigged" just off of the bottom. You can also use a Crawler Harness or Go-Getter with a crawler on it. Cast a short distance and let your jig sink to the bottom. Reel in slowly with a jerky retrieval while keeping your jig close to or dragging on the lake bottom. A good depth to start at is around the 10 feet deep. Sometimes the walleyes are 7 feet deep and sometimes they are at 12 feet deep depending on light penetration.

There are so many colors of jigs out there that its hard to choose what to use.. Every fisherman has his favorite, standard, and fall back on colors. On our lake pink seems to be a real standard, and chartreuse, white, green and fire tiger come close behind. Then everyone has the story about the time when black or purple was the only trick back on a certain lake on a certain day. Crawler Harnesses and Go-Getters come in almost as many colors as jigs and are very effective at catching Walleye.

Around the beginning of July the water temperature is a little warmer on the surface of the lake and the Walleye move to feeding at slightly deeper areas between 15 to 30 feet. At this time people tend to switch to 1/4oz. jig heads. Crawler Harnesses can still be used, but sometimes a medium size weight will be needed with it. At this time also some fishermen find great success trolling. Trolling at a slow pace while following the contours of the lake bottom will keep your lure within the Walleye's target zone and pruduce more strikes.

When trolling, the variety of lures used becomes even more varied. Some people stick to their jig heads or crawler harness and go-getter while others prefer Rapala type lures. They vary in size and can be single or jointed body. The colors also offer a wide variety of choice. Most lures come in two depth designs such as floating, (shallow running, around 7-10 feet while trolling) and countdown, (deep diving, 10-30 feet while trolling)

Usually around the end of June the May Fly Hatch in on and for a few days jigs do not work as well. The best lures and colors to use during the May Fly Hatch are small and medium size floater lures and the best colors are perch, orange and white, black and white, and blue. You can see Walleyes come to the surface to gulp flies. In this case try casting a small Mepps spinner or a perch colored Rapala at that spot and tricking the Walleye into biting on your lure. You can also just let the lure float like a bug and give it tiny jerks and the Walleyes will hit it right on the surface.

We have a terrific Walleye population and it is because we have a policy where: Each license holder can keep only 1 Walleye between 18-22 inches for the week. No Walleye to be kept under 13 inches or between 22-28 inches.

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