Flip the switch! Light me up!

Walleye season finally arrives here in District 17 of southern Ontario tonight at midnight and I'm cranked up like a two dollar watch, ready and waiting to hit the water in anticipation of hooking some slot-size delicious walleye.

Will I get them? I sure can't see why not. I've already been driving the high hills around Rice Lake the last two weeks, looking to see where the weeds that attract post-spawn walleye are, and those coontail beds are emerging just fine, thank you.

Those weed lines and the little pockets along them are going to hold walleye for sure. They'll be waiting there to ambush some easy snacks to fill their bellies and boy, oh boy, do I have some treats in store for them!

Will they be crankbaits? No, I'm sorry to say, they won't be. Not yet. Anyone who knows me or has fished with me knows I'm a crankbait fanatic and I throw them every chance I get. Why? It's simple. They often catch the most and largest fish of any species you are chasing. Anyone who hasn't clued into this is missing the boat, you might say. Even some self proclaimed "pros" haven't clued into this fact, but it is a reality for sure.

The thing is, though, I'm not looking for big walleye on Rice Lake. The slot size limits don't allow for that and besides, the smaller ones closer to the small end of the slot scale taste better anyway. As the old saying goes "the closer to the bone, the sweeter the meat."

The other reason I won't be throwing crankbaits just yet in this the weather. Too much rain and quickly changing weather patterns that have moved through our region in the last few days will likely make the fish sulk a bit and they won't be chasing darting, quick moving baits. I'll save the cranks for the next spate of really warm weather we get (soon, I hope!) and you can bet the walleye will be all over them like a dog on a bone!

For now, though, I plan on starting early this Saturday morning with some subtle baits that I can lift and drop, twitch, flip into little open pockets and tight to little weed fingers that stick out from the main weedlines.

Guess you want to know what they are, eh?

Number one on the list is a Trigger-X four-inch perch-coloured bait on a quarter-ounce jig head. How good are they? The Canadian warehouse for Normark/Rapala in Oshawa has none left in stock right now and I, as a Prostaff member, can't even get any yet. Good thing I saved some last fall!

Next will be a Lunker City Finesse Minnow, again, fished on a quarter-ounce ball head jig. I was lucky enough to get introduced to these great baits several years ago before they were even available in Canada and I purchased a few bags of them. Wow, did they work! Stupid me, though, I let guys I was fishing with try them and they took the labels off the bags they came in, got the phone number and address where they came from and started ordering the baits for themselves and then used them to fish against me in tournaments. Nice guys, eh? Won't happen again….

Anyway, that aside, you can't fish walleye without tossing a bucktail jig, no matter the time of year.

I've got mine tied on, ready to go. Black or perch hues should be killers, but don't make the error of ripping them through the weeds just yet. The time for that is yet to come, when the weather heats up and the lilac trees bloom. For now, just hop ’em and pop ’em in small six- to 12-inch lifts. Don't get in a hurry to move them and be sure to watch your line for almost invisible twitches and tweaks. The best walleye anglers don't wait to feel the bite — they see the line move or feel a change in the way their bait is falling. Every time you see or feel anything different, set the hook. Hard! Walleye are sneaky rascals and can taste a bait and spit it out in less than the blink of an eye.

That's it for this week. Good luck on the walleye. And if you get your limit, head for some crappie action. They're just starting to move in to spawn on several of the Kawartha Lakes. Mmmm, good!

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