Thread: Hefner: Cold weather = Hot fishing?

Hey, Gentry.

The walleyes are biting early and late. If you're into 'eyes, bring your gear.

If it's during the daylight hours, they'll be deeper, where leeches would work. Bottom-bouncer rigs with a crawler would work as long as they're outside the riprap, unless you don't mind losing a rig by dragging the riprap. Up north, a lot of walleyes are caught on a half ounce glow-head jig with mylar "wings" and a large tube or curly tail. I'd post a pic, but I am very low-tech. I'm hoping for a good cell phone or digital camera for Xmas. Hopefully my high-tech granddaughter can help me.
LARGE sassy shads pulled deep are a great way to pick up 'eyes at Hefner.
If you fish early or late, the gay blades, Rapalas, rogues, Wiggle Warts, Baby One Minus, etc. are good. Vary the retrieve, using a continuously submerged retrieve or a twitch-pause retrieve, letting the bait rise to the surface, sometimes twitching immediately and sometimes letting it sit for a few seconds.
Your best chance is to fish after dark, right along the shoreline of the riprap. We have killed them at night, mostly using the large Rapalas (13-15), Wiggle Warts or Baby One Minus in white/black dots, fire tiger, or black/dark red, and sometimes 5-inch sassy shads. It gets very cold and slippery on those rocks, and you would need power poles on your boat in order to stay close to the bank.
Of course, you always have a chance of hanging one with your crappie jigs. I once got six 'eyes out of my tube, but they were all 17-17 1/2 inchers. We have also gotten 8 1/2 pounders, which can make you very nervous as those fins get close to your tube.