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Growing up fishing walleye on a flowage gave me the opportunity to develop fishing tactics through trial and error tested walleye lures.  I now am lucky enough to live on a flowage and when I head out to hunt the walleye, the following are the baits I bring with.

1. Hook and sinker

One of the biggest walleye I have caught was caught using the simple hook and sinker combo.  You can never go wrong with a lively minnow, leech, or crawler on this simple combo.  It is perfect for bank fishing and watching your rod waiting for the thump.  It is also a deadly combo when night fishing, slowly retrieving your bait in, or casting into pockets of weeds.

2. Walleye Jigs

In the spring of the year when walleye are in a predictable habitat, before the summer patterns start, a walleye jig combo tipped with a minnow will out fish every other bait you could use to catch walleye.  I buy 100 walleye jigs at a time, and because I fish stained water, green is my choice.

3. Floating Rapala

When the weather warms and the first weeds start to fill the bays, it is time to look in your walleye fishing tackle for a floating Rapala.  These late Spring and early Summer Walleye are looking for food.  You have two options: 1. Cast the shallow flats and be prepared for hard hits. 2. Long line troll the floating Rapala over the weeds.   An unjointed floating Rapala is the bait to use early in the year as these baits represent the forage from the previous year, and have less movement so better provokes a strike.

4. Walleye deep divers

The thing to remember here is that there are a lot of different deep divers.  All you need to do is find one that works for you and the depth you are targeting.  I am typically targeting 15-20 feet of water and use the Cotton Cordell Walleye Diver.  In late spring through early fall these aggressive walleye baits allow you to cover a lot of water and find the feeding fish.