GENIUS WHISPERS IN AN INTRICATE WALLEYE WORLD

Fishing Authority: So begins a meandering story... Right time and place, first ice on a body of water with mombo walleyes. Last Mountain Lake, Saskatchewan. Dream destination.

 Cheating, it’s so easy? Not quite, and smart to be there is more like it. We go when we can. Bay of Quinte. Western Basin of Lake Erie. Lake Winnipeg. And a dozen other slightly less stellar options in between, along with all the other waters we have to choose from. Mostly we make do. But we’re always scheming to go get us some of the best.

 Last Mountain is 58 miles long by a mile or so wide, running north and south just northwest of Regina, through rolling high prairie—a prairie lake on the northern edge, fertile and productive but with ice cover for five months. Glacial trenches 60 to 80 feet deep sustain vibrant populations of whitefish and ciscoes in the middle and lower lake. Burbot are plent iful. Crayfish. Shallower water holds perch, suckers, and minnow life. Walleyes here can live 25years and never spend a day howling at a hungry moon.

Specific spots are in play in the lower reservoir where shoals of sand, gravel, clay, sometimes rock, sometimes boulders, break from 15 to 20 into 30 feet—35 to 40 at times—always jutting into trench water.

Add stellar anglers and things get.inter- esting. In-Fisherman Digital Editor Jeff Simpson and guide and certified fish- Clayton Schick, who lives near Last Mountain, are two of the best. are shooting In-Fisherman TV in early December last year. Chris Hoffman, who enters this fray a bit later, doing the camera work.

simpson has fished all of the great walleye waters in North America—those just mentioned— plus scads of other waters in the Dakotas, Minnesota, Manitoba, and Ontario, including Devils Lake and Lake of the Woods. Schick spends summers guiding for lake trout and pike atone of Canada’s mostexciusive destinations, Wollaston Lake Lodge.

After icing giganto walleyes for a month he heads to Florida Keys for tarpon and anything else that swims there. He’s a vagabond in search of big fish—a whisperer on mission. He handles more giants in a season that most of us handle in a lifetime.

Simpson is a lifelong student of fishing for walleyes and after visiting so many fisheries notes how similar the fishing can be. “The fundamental jigging strategies I grew up with reading in In-Fisherman are always right on target to begin,” he says. “No matter the chosen lure, you lift it and let is it fall to attract fish. Sometimes they come right in and eat on the pause, which is the main triggering maneu ver. Other times you add a nod to the pause.

“A nod should start just after a fish has moved in and won’t respond,” he says. “Sometimes all it
takes is the slightest movement beyond the barest movement already inherent in the pause.”

At that point, as we have so often instructed, every day is an ongoing experiment in action. We toy with
different lures. We toy with more aggressive moves, especially at first ice. We may also eventually temper
back, using a deadstick with a minnow anchored on a Jig in a nearby hole, as the jigging continues, especially as the season slides into midwinter.

Sometimes most of the fish seem to respond to the same general lures and presentation moves. Other times, each fish that comes in responds differently than the one before it. We’re looking for patterns and sometimes they develop and other times they don’t.
Simpson: “Nodding doesn’t require conspicuous movement of your hand or wrist; just squeeze the rod handle with the palm of your hand and fingers. If it’s obvious, it isn’t a nod it’s a jiggle or a shake, more aggress ive motions reserved for swimming lures like the Jigging Rap, or working spoons for active walleyes, typi cally during prime-time low-light periods.

“With a nod the minnowhead on the hook, or just the dangling hook, barely dances. Nodding also works as you slowly raise the lure about 4 to 6 inches, then stop. Then nod again. Anytime you can get a fish to move up, their mood seems to change and you increase the chances of them biting. Stick with these fundamentals and work from there.”

Noteworthy on the days that Simpson and Schick fish together is how many fish won’t respond to lifting the lure, but do respond to dropping it and working it on the bott om. “Working the bottom isn’t new,” Simpson says. “It’s always an option. One tactic is to pound a lure on sand or clay to create a disturbance then lift it an inch to 6 inches to a foot and pause. Most of the time you want the lift into the pause to be dead slow. The ‘thing’ is rising up out of the disturbance below.”

We want to highlight another bott om maneuv er, but first let’s set the scene.

Schick fishes about 20 days at first ice, morning and evening and often all day, so it isn’t long and he gets a feeling for where fish are and what they’re responding to. One advantage to fishi ng all day, even though the best periods remain at twil ight, is learning where conc entrations of fish are. As he explores, checking diff erent depths and areas, he often finds fish that come in to look but won’t bite. Those spots can be top areas to set up for a twilight bite.

Schick: “In 20 days of fishing you have days when the fish are just on. They come in hard and if they don’t take right away you play keep-away a foot or two off bottom and you’re catching fish.

“Sometimes you get a morni ng and an evening like that back to back—or an evening and the next morning. Then things settle down for a day or two, and often three or four, with reluctant fish, even during the twilight periods. Sometimes we get back into a few active fish by maki ng a move to a new area. Weather is always a factor, too. I’m always hopi ng for an extended period of mild weather. Miserably cold weather often means tough fishing.

“And there’s a difference between big fish and smaller fish. It’s the big ones I’m after and they get tentative fast. You want to see a giant mark on sonar come in and cover your lure. But even when they want to bite they’re still wary, which translates to almost always tentative. That’s when I might work the bottom.”

Schick has two favorite spoons, the PK Spoon and the PK Flutterfish. He’s used them to catch dozens of walleyes above 10 pounds, including one of 13.56 pounds, on Last Mount ain the last couple years.

The PK Spoon is a compact teard rop shape with a smooth mirr or-plated finish on one side, and dimpling like a golf ball on the reverse side, producing contrasti ng flickering flash that blends color to become a hint of something. The spoon body is biased in the butt end with a slight bulge on the mirror side that adds weight so it settles butt first. The head of the spoon, which is thinner than the butt, cuts like a knife on the lift, while the butt gives off a subtle pulsing wobble

 This is the same fundamental more than subtle deliv esign as the classic Acme Kastmaster; but the unique design of the PK makes it tip on its side and shimmy and shake as it drifts down through the first half of the fall, at which point the butt takes control and it settles like a rock, with only a little swing back into position where it first settles. It’s genius—a compact spoon that fishes precisely yet crosses over into the world of flutter spoon.

(I interject that it’s imposs ible to know how a spoon or any other ice lure actua lly fishes without dropp ing it in a tank and putting it through the rounds. I’ve been lucky to always have near me in our office a large observation tank to test- drive lures. At a minimum, drop the lures you are cons idering as part of your repe rtoire down an ice hole and watch how they work. What a surprise to read testimony from other anglers about how specific spoons perf orm only to find the oppos ite with tank testing.)

In contrast, the PK Flutt erfish is shaped like a flattened peanut, with a drawn-in waistline midw ay between each end, the stamped metal relatively thick and bent into a slight concaving arch. The thick stamping allows the spoon to fish heavy for its size and shape. Even the smallest version (1/8 ounce) coupled with light line fishes effectively in 30 feet. Schick fishes the 3/8- and 1/2-ounce sizes.

Meanwhile, the unique concave elongated shape with the pinched middle makes the spoon lay on its side throughout the fall, shimmyi ng, flashing, flickering, with the mirror side up, the divot-side down, as it also rocks left-right, right-left like a falling leaf. It’s genius—a flutt er spoon that fishes precisely.

)>Schick with another big walleye from Last Mountain Lake, Saskatchewan, working a PK Spoon at first ice.

A spoon is an illusion. Often the illusion is little more than subtle delivery device for a tasty, aromatic morsel of something fishy, like a minnow head or a whole minnow. A little flash, a little vibration—a hint of color and something injured, something struggling (on the lift-fall). And then it hangs vertically, for all purposes disappearing on the pause, except for whatever you’ve tipped the spoon with, which can be critical, but at other times need be no more than almost nothing, which is to say bare hook

At times the jigging process is like calling ducks or geese or turkeys or elk. When the critters haven’t been bothered and are looking aggressively for food or company, call boldly and often, often using lures that are a step or two more “outstanding” than a spoon. Other times, when they’ve been worked over, have become wary, or environmental condit ions aren’t perfect, just hint at the presence of something. Touch off a spark of curiosity. Don’t let them find you easily—make them search. Or don’t show them somet hing that’s obviously food—make them wonder until they have to sample to be sure.

With a spoon we’re hinting subtly at this and subtly at that by lifting and letting it fall. The illusion continues as the fish draws near. There’s no logic involved on the fish’s part. It’s reacting to a set of simple cues. Something flickered and flashed, wiggled and fell. Based on past experience it’s pred isposed to think food. We have to continue the ruse long enough to get the fish to sample.

)>Simpson’s largest walleye during the In-Fisherman TV shoot was 32 inches and weighed 12.4 pounds. It bit a PK Flutterfish thumping the bottom.

It helps to know what walleyes can see. In-Fisherman has always been about
blending the best science with extensive field experience to bring you honest answers about fishing questions. A shorth and version of what we’ve writt en extensively about in past issues goes like this:

Most anglers know that walleyes have eyes that easily gather light so they have an advantage over most prey in dim light. This advantage is most obvious during twilight periods, but also after dark, although even walleyes have limited vision in the complete blackness brought on by nightfall under ice covered by snow.

Most anglers don’t know that walleyes can’t see details well. Many anglers assume the opposite because walleyes have such large eyes. But it’s the cone cells in the back of the eye, in the retina, not eye size, that determine color vision and the abili ty to see details like the subtle patt erns on lures.

Walleyes are unique in having some of the largest cone cells of any predatory animal, on land or sea. Cone cells are like pixels on a large- screen TV in a sports bar—the bigg er the pixels the fuzzier the picture. Another indication that walleyes don’t have good detailed vision relates to their eyes being so good at gathering and scattering light, which is what helps them see well in dim light. That also makes details fuzzy.

Meanwhile, walleyes have color vision that peaks in the orange-red and green portions of the spectrum. They see colors on both sides of each peak, but sensitivity declines. So they see wavelengths shorter than green and longer than orange-red, but not well. Overall, they see orange and red well, followed by green and yellow. They’re least sensitive to blue and violet, so much so that in most situations they probably can’t see them. This includes purple.

They also don’t see UV light. Our research suggests that while wall- eyes can’t see UV light, the addit ion of UV brighteners to lures may at times help those lures fluor esce, which means the brightness of the lures increases when fluoresc ent paint is used. In order for this to happen, though, there needs to be enough light present to allow UV to penetrate the water column. Such light generally isn’t available under ice covered with snow, the more so in twilight conditions that often result in the most active feeding. The Inside Angles in this issue has more detailed information on this topic.

UV light and fluorescence shouldn’t be confused with phosp horescence, where a chemical comp ounds in paint emits visible light (glow) after being charged by a light source. In dim light this light is more visible to walleyes and it is a proven producer in some situations.
Putting what we know together we can say that like most predat or fish, walleyes in clear water can sense movements well at a dist ance—in the best light perhaps out to 50 feet or so. In dim light that dist ance is reduced to perhaps 5 to 10 feet at early twilight. As the walleye closes the distance, the moving lure is flashing and flickering as it falls. There may be a hint of color. We are, again, predisposing the walleye to thinking “food.” It’s a grand game of sleight of hand.

As the walleye closes the distance, the best vision discrimination occurs for a short distance from perhaps a

foot or so out to five feet, where the fish has binocular vision. Even then though, we know that walleyes don’t
see details well. And when the fish closes the distance to within about a
foot, binocular vision disappears, making it even more difficult for the fish to discriminate,

See why it’s possible for a Spoon, which looks like nothing a walleye ever eats, to be mistaken as food? See why it’s so important to hint at this and that to get the fish to bite ? See why a nod when the fish, is at close distance can help the fish find what it’s looking for after being attracted from a distance?

Schick: “1 don’t know which spoon I’ve caught the most big fish on. It’s probably about even. With the PK, I fish the 1/4- or the 3/8- ounce versions on 8-pound Berkley Trilene XL. I start with this spoon when I’m exploring and anticipating active fish. If after several days of fishing things are trending the other way I fish the Flutterfish.

“The PK fishes well on the bottom, but I like the Flutterfish better for reasons I’ll get to in a moment. The PK works well off the bottom, I suspect for the reasons we’ve been discussing. It’s compact, attracts fish well, but when they get in close it’s a mystery to them. The mirror side helps the spoon disapp ear, while the divot side gives a hint that something’s there. A little nod after the pause. Move the lure up and nod some more. Sometimes I make them chase, depending on how they’re reacting. Yes, it’s an ong oing experiment.

“1 like the Flutterfish when fish are tentative overall. This is when they often come in and at times— again, you just have to experiment— they won’t respond to moving the lure up, but are interested in it on the bottom. One bottom maneuver I find deadly at times is to just lift the head of the Flutterfish—not the butt—and thump it up and down. It’s subtle disturbance in comparis on to pounding bottom.

  “Even big walleyes find it easy to eat the lure right on the bottom, because the butt is light enough to get sucked up and in. Before they eat you see them tip down on your sonar screen. The butt end of the PK doesn’t move that well. If you’re going to pound bottom with that one I follow with a lift to get it above the bottom. That’s a great maneuver at times. A longer lure like the Flutter- fish also walks across the bottom easi ly, another visual picture that excites some walleyes. And, at times, after thumping bottom, I also try a slow lift and a suspended pause with the Flutterfish.

Simpson: “How deadly that bottom tactic can be is shown by the fact that it produces all the big fish the first days I’m there using other tactics and can’t catch a thing—at least not a big fish. I start with a Chubby Darter, one of my favorites and a lure that, if I do say so myself, I’m pretty good with. (Note that Simpson is the creator of this lure, carving the first mode ls by hand and selling the idea to Salmo in the late 1990s.) I’m also tryi ng other spoons. Nothing. It’s the PK Spoon producing a few fish up off bottom and the Flutterfish doing the most damage on and just above the bottom. I finally switch and, using Schick’s bottom tactics with the Flutterfish, I’m immediately into fish.”

But no tactic in wall- eye fishing produces all the time. No lure or lures are a pipeline to success in every instance. The game we play is convoluted, a matter of calculation based on what we know from exper ience and what we’ve learned by reading articles like this and watchi ng others in action. One can never dismiss a classic option like the Jigg ing Rap or the Chubby Darter, or many of the other classic spoons, without putting them to the test.

Chris Hoffman, In-Fisherman videographer who shoots the unfoldi ng drama of catching those Last Mountain walleyes for In-Fisherman Television, spends four days fishing with Schick before Simpson arrives. He catches his first 30-inch wall- eye and several bigger fish. One even ing he has a big mark come in on a Johnson Shutter Spoon. No go, so he switches to a PK Spoon. Minutes later, frustrated, but with the fish still on screen, he reels up and considers his options. Dropping a #7 Jigging Rap, he jigs once and the fish bites. This one is 29.5 inches and 12.39 pounds.

)>Hoffman’s 29.5 x 20-inch 12.39-pound walleye was caught several days before the filming excursion, on a #7 Jigging Rapala, after the fish rejected several other spoons. 



Hoffman notes how deadly the PK Spoon is for Schick and himself in a boulderfield where it’s impossib le to work the bottom. And he furt her notes that another good angler fishing near them also ices some big fish. He’s using light line—6 pound—in combination with a 1/8- ounce Northland Forage Minnow. He catches fish working the lure in traditional lift-fall-pause fashion off the bottom as well as pounding bott om and lifting.

Today, the world is filled with astute walleye anglers. Over the years we defined lure categories that work and key lures within those cate gories. We taught how to work those lures. It pays to keep things as simple as possible, but great anglers respond to ever-changing fishing conditions with an open mind and engaging and enlightened tactics.

This isn’t about fishing Last Mountain Lake. The body of water could just as well be Diy Lake, South Dakota, or Onieda Lake, New York, although the fish wouldn’t be as impressive.
The cast of characters, from lures to anglers, might change, but how you proceed, and your succ ess, is determined by your ability to process input and appropriately respond to the ongoing experiment in action that is every day on the water.

“...GREAT ANGLERS RESPOND TO EVER-CHANGING FISHING CONDITIONS WITH AN OPEN MIND AND
ENGAGING AND ENLIGHTENED TACTICS”

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GENIUS WHISPERS IN AN INTRICATE WALLEYE WORLD

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