Know your lake type to ice walleye

Walleye are basic creatures. They need food to grow, good habitat to hide from predators, relatively clean water, and good spawning areas. If these elements are present, walleye are abundant. Yet, walleye don’t act the same in every lake they’re found in. This has caused many winter anglers a lot of anguish over the years. The pieces of the puzzle are a little different in every waterbody, and walleye locations will change once ice is on a lake. The most important thing a winter walleye angler must do when tackling new water is figure out what kind of lake it is, learn the dif­ferences, then fish accordingly. The following samples are based on several waterbod­ies that represent the three main types of lakes: oligotrophic, mesotrophic, and eutro­phic. The suggested fishing spots and tech­niques described have proven to be good bets year after year. Eutrophic lakes Eutrophic lakes and reservoirs have filled in over time with sediments. They’re generally shallow, but highly pro­ductive due to nutrient loading from agricul­ture, sewage, or natural sources of fertilizer. These lakes are often choked with aquatic weeds. Despite the high numbers of fish they can produce, they have serious draw­backs. Overall water quality can be poor, resulting in algae blooms that rob the water of precious oxygen. The deeper waters of eutrophic lakes generally have the lowest oxygen levels, and this, coupled with decay­ing vegetation, can lead to winter kill of fish. Walleye can and do thrive in some eutrophic lakes, though, thanks to the large amount of forage available, including perch, minnows, and aquatic insects, and the thick weeds. But, low oxygen levels might cause fish to become highly stressed and dormant in the depths of winter. Fishing for walleye in eutrophic lakes is usually best at first and last ice. Oligotrophic lakes An oligotrophic lake is almost the mirror opposite of a eutrophic lake. It typically features deep water and might even hold lake trout, as well as walleye. These types of lakes generally have rela­tively low fish production, due to low nutri­ent levels. Typically, oligotrophic lakes have high-quality clear water. Unlike eutrophic lakes, deeper water is generally well oxy­genated. This allows fish to use more of the main basin of a lake to feed and live in the winter. However, low nutrient levels mean less overall forage and lower num­bers of predatory fish such as walleye. Low nutrients also mean fewer weeds,