Tri-State Outdoor News

I know its winter, but good open water angling opportunities exist for cold water spawning species of fish like walleyes during the winter months. And, while most of the readers of Tri-State Outdoor News likely don’t have many ice fishing opportunities, they can still get a jump start on their fishing season.

The key to catching walleyes during the winter is to find them, and the best places to find them are in the rivers and spillways below the dams of any reservoirs with fishable walleye populations. For Tri-State Outdoor News reader, that means heading to places such as Lake Monroe, Harden Reservoir, Cagles Mill and Williams Dam in Indiana or Olney Lake in Illinois.

Walleyes migrate below spillways for a variety of reasons: For one, they spawn in water temperatures between forty and fifty-two degrees Fahrenheit, so the movement is simply preparation for the upcoming spawning season. Water below spillways also offers highly oxygenated water with consistent water flows and temperatures, and lastly the areas offer the fish a place to rest and feed before the spawning cycle begins.

In my experience for our area, February is usually the best month, but good fishing can be had as early as January and into March, depending on water temperature.

Fishing below spillways such as these anglers at Lake Monroe can render good results throughout the year but particularly in the late winter and an early spring

When fishing spillways there are a few things to keep in mind that will help you hook more fish. For starters, try to locate cover such as rocks, logs or areas of slack water, called eddies. Due to the fish having a slow metabolic rate at this time of year and the fact they are trying to rest up before the spawn, walleyes don’t want to exert a lot of energy for a meal if they don’t have to. Casting your lures or bait upstream of such areas and letting them drift down past the cover will work well. Weeds are another good source of cover that will hold fish. Walleyes will often lay in wait in the weeds for an easy meal to swim by.

I have found that jigs and minnows, either used solely or in conjunction with one another, typically work well too. I have also caught some fish this time of year on small Rat-L-Trap crankbaits as well. Don’t be afraid to try different techniques though if the bite is slow. I discovered one of my favorite presentations under such circumstances. Not having any luck with jigs, minnows or crankbaits one year, I decided to take a half-piece of nightcrawler and thread it onto a hook about 15 inches below a small split-shot sinker. Then I would simply cast out and let the crawler drift to a point directly downstream from me, gently lifting it over any obstacles as it drifted. Then I would slowly drag the crawler along the bottom, carefully bouncing it over any obstructions. After employing this method, I left with a limit of walleyes. Then there were times that this presentation took a back seat as jigs and minnows outperformed it, so you never know.

Another proven method for putting winter walleyes on the stringer is to affix a bobber above your bait or lure and letting it drift into areas of cover or slack water. A spring bobber works best here because it allows you to twitch the bait with very little movement while keeping the bait in the strike zone. With a slip bobber, you end up merely pulling the line up through the bobber, which raises the bait rather than twitching it.

Walleyes can be finicky. It is not uncommon to be right in a school of inactive fish and not get a bite. Certain times of the day will work better than others. The action in one spot may be dead and heat up a couple hours later or vice versa.

In my experience, the fishing below dams can be great from the spillway immediately below the dam to several hundred yards or more downstream, so start at one location and move if you have to until you find some fish.

Whether fishing large rivers from a boat or smaller ones in a pair of waders, spillways of all sizes cough up some of your best chances at winter walleyes.