Walleye highways

It’s mid-afternoon in January and it’s cold. Steve Barnett and I are exploring new water for walleye. Behind us lies a trail of dozens of holes. We’ve found a mid-lake hump, and now we’re hunting for the sweet spot. As Barnett finishes another hole, I lower the underwater camera to bottom. It reveals a strip of basketball-sized rocks extending into deep water. I spin the camera and see a school of perch swimming over sand and grass. It’s picture perfect. For a fleeting moment, I think I hear angels singing, but it could just be Barnett’s witty ode to the divinity of the discovery. Walleye never stray far from their forage, so finding a perch-filled, mid-lake hump is a good thing. We have pin­pointed and positioned ourselves directly over a prime spot — the walleyes’ lead-in to their food shelf. Not ones to waste time, we clean out a few holes over the ribbon of rocks and start jigging. Within minutes Barnett ices a walleye and I quickly follow suit with a 19-incher. Steady action continues for the afternoon, and twilight delivers some of the best hard-water action I’ve experienced. Fishy routes 101 A lead-in can be defined as a path that fish use to migrate to and from areas, frequently bridging deep resting locales and shallow feeding grounds. Think of them as the on-and off-ramps of walleye highways. A lead-in is reliable because it funnels and concen­trates fish. Targeting clusters of fish is always better than trying to tease bites from scat­tered schools. Walleye get competitive in groups. They go on the offensive and lash out at lures to prevent their pals from stealing the snack. Getting on lead-ins lets you capitalize on this behaviour. Setting up on a walleye travel route also means there’s a high turnover of fish. If one traveller passes by your lure, odds are good that the next will be keen on eating. The frequency with which walleye move along lead-ins varies. During overcast conditions, it’s com­mon for schools of fish to move randomly back and forth, but traffic gets more constant and congested during the twilight witching hour, when walleye feed aggressively. Lead-ins come in many forms. Some are subtle, others are pronounced. The follow­ing is a sampling of common walleye lead-ins and top tactics to fish them. Protrusion power The most abundant walleye lead-ins come in the form of a protrusion of