Night...6...over, 5am

You pull me on the dark side too
No walleye yet, but one of these was caught at 10pm yesterday. Around 18" both. Then a couple of rock bass. Never thought SMB can be caught at night.
Thank you very much.

A nice pair of fish there. Best fighters pound for pound. Most of my small mouth bass are caught from 2am until the sun comes up. That is when I head back to the house to get some sleep. Large mouth bass as well but only in two of my spots do they really feed consistently at night. That being said I only kept one large mouth from my night fishing this past week. I did catch 2 small mouth on wednesday night at balsam around midnight, two hours earlier than usual. Good luck night fishing, bring a couple of flash lights because you never know when the first one runs out. I have three lights, one on my head, one around my neck and one in the box, just in case. Also use three rods at night, it's no fun playing with fishing line in the dark if it gets tangled or caught on something. And for me three knives, small, medium and large. Never know what you might walk into in the woods when it is dark. Was only in the woods once this week, wednesday night. It was so dark with no moon until early in the morning. Stay safe. Welcome to the dark side.

Nice pair of bass RM, congrats and welcome to the club!

CM, I have a good question for you.

When you fishing for shallow walleye at night, do you ever fish top waters or did you ever have an experience fishing top waters specifically for walleye at night?

I love fishing top water lures and past Saturday we were smashing pike and bass on whopper ploppers, poppers and walkers in the afternoon, so I am wondering if i should try them for night shallow walleyes as well.

Thanks.

I have never fished top water for walleye at night. That being said at night I am casting into 6 to 8 feet of water and reeling into shore. If I am in a boat I park it about ten yards off the shore and cast all around me. Those shallow crank baits you see in some of my pictures only go down 18 to 24 inches. And when I use a slip bobber for walleye and crappie I am only eighteen inches under the surface. My bomber crank baits only go 6 inches under the surface. I have never tried top water at night. YOU MAY BE ON TO SOMETHING HERE. In shallow water why wouldn't a walleye come up for a top water bait. Now if you try this, and I know you will. I am done fishing for a bit. Now you saying this makes me want to jump in the car and wait for the sun to go down. THANKS A LOT... LOL. Let me know how it works. I would start off with a really slow retrieve. In october and november I reel in so slow like a turtle so I do not scare the walleye out of the shallows. GOOD LUCK on this knew idea. I think it will work. I will be trying that now as well in two weeks unless I can get out sooner than that. STAY SAFE.

I went through my lures that I use for walleye and so many of them that I use at night run shallow. I just never gave it much thought before because I judge my depth at night from the weeds. At night I do not go into the weeds that are under the surface a few feet down. Just want to hit the top of them cause a little disturbance and move on to the next weed. The walleye always swim up to my lures at night. Another thing is frogs and leeches would be the favourite food for the walleye in the fall. They are both full of blood and the frogs are returning to the lakes this time of year, mostly at night. You might try a small frog as well, you never know until you try.

good report


try twitching and pausing a floating crank....when it rests on the surface walleye will hit it. it's a kind of boring way to fish for them but at certain times they love it

Completely agree and thanks for the detailed thinking out loud

I know that shallow diving cranks and jerks work for walleye in shallow water, including suspending, slow rising and slow sinking versions. No question about that.

Would be interesting to see if they would respond to top waters. My guess would be that some of them might respond but that top waters likely be less productive than subsurface and shallow diving lures due to the nature of their forage being predominantly minnows this time of year.