Early summer is one, long, drawn-out transition for walleyes. They switch locations, patterns, and forage bases like bass pros change hats.
“If you can’t catch walleyes in June, it’s not because they aren’t biting,” says guide Tom Neustrom. “It’s because you can’t find them.” Walleyes reach metabolic peak in June, but often scatter into various patterns.
The English call it a Rose Moon. Some Native Americans call it the Strawberry Moon, and Americans in general call it a Honey Moon. By any name, the full moon in June croons a walleye tune. Walleyes go nuts. Doesn’t mean you can always readily catch them, but walleyes approach their metabolic peak in June.
July’s not bad either, but walleyes proceed from fairly concentrated during post-spawn to relatively scattered throughout summer. Anglers are hunting for squadrons as opposed to divisions. Scattered, maybe, but more aggressive. “If you can’t catch walleyes in June, it’s probably because you can’t find them, not because they aren’t biting,” says famous Minnesota guide, Tom Neustrom (Minnesota Fishing Connections, www.mnfishingconnections. com). “On these big sandy lakes, like Mille Lacs in Minnesota and Winnibigoshish in Wisconsin, walleyes key in on the movements of baitfish in June,” he said. “They slowly disperse in the bigger lakes because depth changes are so gradual. When June begins, walleyes are flanking 6- to 10-foot rock reefs and weed flats, chasing perch and shiners. By the end of the month, they’re on mud flats topping out at 16 to 22 feet hunting ciscoes and perch. Periodically they collect wherever bugs are hatching, keying on ciscoes that feed on the bugs rising from bottom.”
Walleye Honey Moon
Most years, Neustrom’s first cast to a June morning is made with a 1/8-ounce ball-head tipped with a fathead minnow. “Later in June, when walleyes move out to the mud flats, we switch to leeches and crawlers,” he said. “We change up, though. You never know in June. One guy runs a shiner, the next guy runs a leech until we know what they’re keying on. Somewhere between mid-June and mid-July, the big mayfly hatches happen. You can see clouds of nymphs rising on your graph. Walleyes might be anywhere in the water column over these soft-bottom areas, and, with so much bait in front of them, they can be hard to catch.”
But a lot of walleyes stay shallow at the same time, keying on young perch and shiners. “Newly emerging weed beds are walleye magnets in June,” Neustrom says. “When crayfish molt and lose their shells, we move to the shallow rocks, pulling 1/4-ounce Storm Hot N’ Tots or #5 Rapala Glass Raps in crawfish colors. At the same time, we can catch fish on spinner rigs with a 2-hook harness. I like to run a size #2 or #3 blade with a leech, minnow, or crawler, behind a cone sinker, which sheds weeds. The best speed tends to be less than 1.2 mph when pulling spinners in early June. I use the side-imaging feature on my Humminbird to stay just off the edge of reefs and weed beds, moving slowly, looking for roaming packs of walleyes. Those are the primary patterns early.”
The most prominent patterns in those small-to-moderate lakes just down the road tend to be similar year after year. Sand breaks are a typical focal point, where shallow forage and deep walleyes mix it up all summer in smaller lakes. These are great spots to pitch jigs or cranks while working from the bow, like a bass fisher-man. Sand breaks are drop-offs and transitions all-in one. The drop may only be a foot or two, but it could be a sharp drop of 10 feet or more. Typically, a sand break is subtle and takes place somewhere between the 6- and 12-foot contours. These are spots where walleyes can quickly move deeper when the wind’s not blowing, where backtrollers and fan casters can both be heroes. Leeches on small spinner rigs and small crankbaits shine here.
Switch Track Hardbaits
Clockwise from Top: Storm Deep Thunderstick Jr.; #4 Salmo Hornet; #4 Rapala Glass Shad Rap; Storm Hot N’ Tot; Reef Runner Shad.
Bread And Butter
Early summer is one, long, drawn-out transition for walleyes. They switch locations, patterns, and forage bases like bass pros change hats. Post-spawn behavior is long gone. Weeds are blooming, approaching full height. Baitfish populations are exploding. Days are longer, and the water is warming. All these factors and more have walleyes on the move.
Some walleyes switch from shallow to deep. Some move from shallow rocks to shallow weeds. Some stay on the rocks. Some slide out over soft-bottom basins and suspend. It’s a time of dispersal, and walleyes break toward every summer niche they commonly exploit in every system. The optimal word is “toward.” Walleyes will be somewhere along the trail to late summer habitat. Some of the patterns they follow in June last a matter of hours.
“On the positive side, the feed bag is on,” says walleye pro Tommy Skarlis, whose credentials include tournament victories in all the major circuits. “Walleyes have fully recuperated from spawning. Water temperatures are climbing to and beyond the magic 70°F mark, where metabolisms and appetites peak. But it’s also a time of dramatic transition. Walleyes are on the move. Sometimes the best clues to location are just signs of life, like minnows exploding through the surface, columns of baitfish under the boat, or flocks of birds hovering over the water. Tom Neustrom taught me about the seagull effect on Lake Winnibigoshish years ago.”
Rivers have bread-and-butter spots in June, too. “Location in rivers can be as easy as finding weed growth,” says Skarlis, who has won tournaments on the Mississippi River. In June, he’s looking for grass. “That’s my little secret,” Skarlis said. “Work the sawgrass. The grass attracts shiners and willow cats, which draw saugers. The walleyes are chowing down on those 7-inch saugers in June, creating a hot crankbait bite. Size #7 and #8 Rapala Shad Raps in walleye colors or fire-tiger patterns trigger some vicious strikes around emerging sawgrass beds. And, as everybody knows, cranks find green grass quick. When you rip that stuff up in June, slow down and work the area hard, jigging with big river chubs.
“Just like lakes, every pattern is in play in June on a river,” Skarlis added. “Wing dams, rip rap, big sand bars—every feature in the river that blocks current could hold one to 100 walleyes. Learn to check them all and check them fast with cranks. I end up pitching and trolling cranks a lot in June to find fish.”
On bigger lakes, bread-and-butter spots can be harder to come by. “Walleyes are moving to the mud flats on Mille Lacs,” Skarlis said. “They’re most concentrated on the mud flats by late July, and they can be there until February. Walleyes keep moving—all summer into fall—from shallower to deeper, toward that wintering habitat. Fall-through-spring patterns are more stable. Walleyes never scatter into so many different modes of behavior as they do in June, when all the baitfish in the system experience their highest population counts and most frequent habitat changes of the year. Though the names of the baitfish may change, the same things are happening wherever walleyes exist.”
Baitfish Movements
Maybe walleyes are on the move because baitfish are, too. Baitfish wander heavily in June. Alewives move in to spawn, then back out to suspend. Perch, which kept walleyes shallow in May, finish spawning and scatter to deeper flats, basin areas, and weed beds. Emerald shiners move out in schools to suspend in open water, feeding on algae and midge larvae. Ciscoes leave structure and mass up over basin areas, moving from hatch-to-hatch. Common shiners spawn in May, but sometimes in June. They spawn in current, then some move to the mouths of tributaries and bottlenecks. Golden shiners often spawn later in summer, staying in developing weeds all month. Spottails concentrate in depths of 3 to 6 feet to spawn, then follow bottom transitions toward soft-bottom basin areas. As the bulk of the shallow prey moves off in June, walleyes follow. Certainly walleyes have these choices and more in most bodies of water. The two biggest pieces of the puzzle are: 1. Knowing which baitfish populations are biggest in your waters and 2. what those baitfish are doing throughout June. Roger Peterson image.
Tracks On the Water
Skarlis, also a hunter, looks for “tracks” in June. “Use your eyes as much as your sonar,” he suggested. “You might see minnows any time, anywhere, but a really big school should make you sit up and take notice. Keep looking and you might actually see walleyes. They use shallow water a lot in June, especially early in the month or during those cold, cloudy spells. Last year, the water temperatures on Mille Lacs were actually colder at the end of June than at the beginning. When that happens, walleyes may not spread into those summer patterns as quickly.”
Skarlis looks at summer as a process. “In large environments, walleyes move steadily away from spawning areas toward winter habitat throughout summer,” he said. “The process is an exodus out of bays and tributaries to the main lake involving a gradual movement from shallower to deeper habitat. How fast that exodus is depends on weather and bait. When June walleyes move—and they will—don’t go right to winter spots, but move steadily in that direction. Find the structure and the habitat that intersects those migration routes toward winter sites.”
In lakes shallower than 40 feet, the dominant structures tend to be flats, where the deepest water can be quite a distance from any 20-foot contour. Weeds or rocks become the primary spots, especially in smaller lakes. On big lakes, basin flats might dominate the scene. On all lakes, some wall-eyes disperse to weeds, some to rocks, some to basins. When those basin walleyes begin making that annual move away from shallow structure on big lakes, walleye guide Tony Roach (Roach’s Guide Service, 763/226-6656) breaks out the leadcore.
“By mid-summer, basin patterns dominate for big fish and numbers,” he said. “Don’t expect rhyme or reason. Last year’s waypoints mean nothing. Last week’s waypoints mean nothing. The only way to find fish is to hunt, starting where they were last found.” The key to basin bites in the soft-bottomed lakes of southern and central Minnesota is hatching insects.
One of the best walleye guides anywhere, Roach seems to conjure bites out of nowhere, where the least hint of structure is a mile or more away. His secret? Like Skarlis, he tracks walleyes with visual cues. “Train yourself to stop and investi-gate when you feel insects glancing off your face,” he said. “In June, if bugs are hatching, walleyes won’t be far away,” Roach said. “I turn the boat around when I feel bugs hitting me, and I start looking for marks with sonar. Bug hatches are like living structure. The bigger the hatch, the more life it attracts.”
Bug hatches draw perch and ciscoes, which might be concentrated anywhere in the water column, from 5 feet under the surface to 30 feet down. Roach is prepared to cover all depths, using varying amounts of leadcore line to present size #4 and #5 Rapala Shad Raps, Rapala Original Floating Minnows, or whatever bait and size best mimics the profile of the predominant baitfish. He uses colors that match the naturals, and the action can be too hot to deploy more than two lines at a time around a steady hatch of bugs. Sometimes it’s best to forget structure. Look for tracks and go where they take you.
After catching a few with cranks or spinner rigs and the bite slows down, back off and pitch plastics to the spot from a distance to pick off a few stragglers.
“Small blades draw fish around insect hatches, too,” Skarlis said. “Spinner rigs can be placed anywhere in the water column with leadcore, and walleyes expect to see minnows flashing, turning every which way, around a hatch. I use a lot of small minnows in June, too. Mostly fatheads. We pull a lot of single-hook rigs for minnows with small willow-leaf blades when nothing else works. But small cranks best emulate those young-of-the year baitfish that are so predominant this time of year.”
To find fish, Skarlis often pulls those smaller cranks, like #4 Salmo Hornets, and size #4 and #5 Rapala Shad Raps. “Those have been deadly in June, wherever I go,” he said. “I’ve caught walleyes in the prop wash with these things, even in 4 feet of water. That’s how aggressive walleyes can be in June. Happens on Winnebago, up at Clear Lake in Iowa, all across Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Canada—everywhere. I often troll small cranks with 16 feet of line out in June. I placed in the top 10 two years in a row in the AIM tournament on the St. Mary’s River in Michigan pulling small cranks around the mouths of smaller tributaries on a short line during early summer.”
Little cranks tend to be universal in June because baitfish are universally smaller. By July, baitfish are bigger and cranks should be, too. It’s a natural trigger, and hatches are a natural cue. When baitfish are pulled close to the surface by hatches, or pushed there by predators from below, it can cause a gathering of terns, pelicans, or gulls. “I don’t know how many times I’ve decided to go to a spot and changed course because birds were gathering somewhere else,” Neustrom said. “In June, patterns aren’t locked in the way they are in fall. You have to roll with the punches and do whatever it takes because patterns are changing all the time. If you’ve got hatches, if you can see baitfish schools dimpling the surface or birds gather-ing, check it out.”
Skarlis agrees. “Be a scrounger in June,” he advises. “Don’t think you’re going to troll small cranks every day. Or jig, or pitch plastics, or anything. You have to scrounge your way through the month. When your pattern evaporates, and it will, look at everything—weeds, rocks, the open basin—and just put lines out and troll wherever you see activity. Things aren’t established. Walleyes are in flux and you have to be ready to roll with it. Be prepared to do it all—jig, rig, pitch, troll, and cast. But most of all, use all the tools at your disposal in June. Use sonar to look under the water, but use your eyes, too.”
Look hard enough and you’ll see tracks on the water. Could be anything. The tops of new cabbage stalks, a school of minnows, emerging insects, or the furious activity of terns. When the switch-track is thrown in June, use all available clues to switch the odds in your favor.
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