Cold weather walleye fishing is tough, especially on the Delaware. I've never cared too much about walleyes, mostly because I don't live in an area with walleye culture. They're here, and they have a group of dedicated people that target them, but it's a small group. Our tackle shops don't carry leeches. Our lakes are filled with guys throwing spinnerbaits and senkos, not jig and minnow combos. The idea of a walleye tournament is completely foreign to me, along with the rest of the country outside the Great Lakes and Great Plains until some guys in Ohio decided to stick some lead weights in some.
That was always fine with me. I'd still rather stick a big ol' leaping bronzeback than a gravel lizard that simply snaps a jig and slowly rolls up to the surface. I'll still make fun of 'eyes for their lackluster fighting abilities. But they're a cool fish and I've been recently fascinated with trying to pattern them on my home river.
Typically for lizards, night time is the right time. The reflective retinas of a walleye are extremely sensitive, making them very efficient predators in the dark.
As the sun dipped below the trees, I found myself standing on one of my frequent haunts on the river. Bouncing a swimbait around a rock pile, I quickly got hung up and broke off. I then switched to a slow-rising jerkbait, hoping to be able to crawl a lure slowly right over the structure. Two casts in, I get slammed, getting on the board with a 17 inch eye.
After releasing that fish, I continued hopping spots. At night time, the river seems like a whole new fishery. Hitting spots where I can normally see protruding logs, rock piles, points, and cuts, I suddenly have to rely entirely on experience and feel. You have to trust your lure is swimming the right way, have to trust you're casting where you want to be casting. The sound of braid running through the guides and the slow vibration from your bait translating up the line are a reassurance that you're doing something right. For the rest of the night, however, I wasn't. Not another hit.
While walleyes are generally night-time feeders, they're not exclusively nocturnal. Especially during low light conditions, they'll hunt during the day. A few days later, we had a pre-frontal window move through, with cloudy, overcast conditions and no wind. Ernie and I made a plan to meet up and try to stick some.
The first spot we hit was a no go. Jerkbaits, swimbaits, jigs, nothing got a single touch. We hit the asphalt and drove about a mile up the river before hiking into another spot. I put on a swimbait with a heavy lead jig and starting bouncing bottom. Soon, that signature walleye thump wallops it. A brief fight, a grab by Ernie, and soon, my new personal best gravel lizard is flopping on the bank. At 20 inches, it was a mere piglet by Lake Erie standards, but a fish I'm very happy with. I harvested that fish and fried it up for lunch, my first experience eating walleye. Walleye meat has a reputation for being one of the finest you can acquire in freshwater, so my expectations were high. It was good, but snakehead is better; I'll die on that hill. It was still delicious, and I'll definitely harvest more of these scrappy, reptilian-looking fish.
By the time the pre-spawn smallies start chowing big baits in the spring and the striper run starts, I'll probably forget about walleye. But for these next few cold months on the river, when everything is still, the guides on your rod are freezing up, and there's plenty of time to collect your thoughts along the frozen, snow covered banks of Eastern PA, I'll be out looking for more thumps.
Cheers, fishy people.
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