Higher water means walleye will be moving

[Red Childress]

During this high/muddy water period, the bait fish will be moving to areas with reduced current which means the walleye will be moving into those same areas. Daytime fishing should pick up since light penetration will be reduced with their discolored water environment.

Larger baits that push more water could be ideal in this situation.....hopping/drifting bigger jigs along the bottom tipped with Gulp or some other fish attracting bait (with scent) is a good pick. If using livebait only, beefing up the hook gaps to match the larger bait size really helps in getting solid hook-ups. Mustad makes a great live bait hook that is made from a thinner wire which allows better penetration on the hook-set as well as allowing the minnow to swim freely and stay lively much longer.

This is the time to stick a BIG fish on the Allegheny River if you are south of Warren. North of Warren is still pretty clear but the river is somewhat higher.

[ThreeRiversEsox]

Per the Meadville Star-Tribune: Angler caught a 34 1/2" 15# 2 oz walleye earlier this week...http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb12/iceburgh13/scan.jpg

[jah1317]

I saw that fish inthe paper the other day... what the heck is up with it's eyes? it looks like it was brought from the deep and got the bends.... I'm not knocking it I was just wondering if anyone had any info.

[Red Childress]

That is a crazy looking fish......usually the swim bladder expands and will be easily seen coming out of the mouth when taken from water over 35 feet or so. I have caught them in 74 feet on Kinzua but have never seen the eyes get funky like that.

Might depend on if the fish is beginning to freeze up or not??? Water expanding at 39 degrees and causing them to bulge??? I have no answer........

I am very curious now. Hopefully someone will enlighten us on this.

[ThreeRiversEsox]

That was alot of the talk on the site where I got it. I noticed the eye right away as well, and wondered the same stuff.

[Red Childress]

Does anyone have an educated guess about the eyes on that walleye????

[RapRunR]

Now that's what i'm talking about. Very very nice fish !!!

With the big size of the bait i have caught i was thinking of adding a stinger. A friend said he had a lot of trouble using them before with debri and getting snagged up more. Anyone use stingers with big live bait and any suggestions on such ? I'm thinking i should have a better chance of hooking up since the fish half of the time will what i call ( licking ) the bait, lol. I hate it when i get a hit to only retrieve half of a shiner back.

A quick net search of the bulging eye deal revealed one thing that was interesting. " A Lesion called Exophthalmos, which is the bulging of the eyes of the fish and may involve only one eye ( unilateral ) or both eyes ( bilateral ). This is one of 2 of the most common lesions in fish. It is important to realize that these common lesions are not a diagnostic for any particular disease process, i.e., they only alert you to the fact that there is a disease process." http://aquanic.org/publicat/state/il-in/ces/white.pdf Scroll down a few paragraphs below. This article is about raising fish and does not state whether eating this fish would be harmful or not to humans. Very interesting as i have never seen this before either on any fish. Need to talk to someone more about eating such a fish or not. Maybe better to just release it i think.

Does that fish look like a male or what ? Pretty slender this time of year for a female isn't it ?

[Red Childress]

I just re-read some posts and ran across this one.....sorry to get back so late.

I have tried using stingers for walleye but for me it is MUCH easier to use them when staying vertical instead of trying to drift them. Staying vertical does not seem to grab debris nearly as often as drifting them, which makes perfect sense.

When my partner encounters them short-striking livebait he either goes to a half crawler or smaller minnnow when jigging. (The stinger also takes away from the action of the shiner and wears it out more quickly.) If he is running harnesses, he will put on an extra stinger to keep his bait laid out when trolling.


As for male or female......That walleye does look skinny to me too, if it is a female. I even had a hard time believing it was 15 pounds because you just assume a fish caught during Fall/Winter is going to look like a football!!

Some photos just do not do proper justice........

[RapRunR]

Np, i know you're a busy guy. I went down to a 3 to 4" shiner with the same effect half the time. Either smart fish or just smaller fish i'm thinking. Going to try and find the hogs with this water up so high this weekend. Thx for the tips on stingers !! I guess i could try a float in a couple areas if i use the stingers where i would still be able to get the bait close to the bottom.