Brian Brosdahl customizes drop-shot rigs to match conditions for summer walleyes.

Summertime brings aggressive walleye feeding habits when their metabolism is high. They must feed or starve due to the rise in water temperatures. When the water warms, walleyes stay near the shade beneath the lake’s vegetation. On some deeper lakes, walleyes drop down to the deepest point where there is still oxygen. On lakes without a thermocline, walleyes are stuck at or slightly above where there is oxygen and slightly cooler temperatures.

Thermoclines are naturally occurring spaces between warm and cold water. Thermoclines develop in the summer months in basin areas of the lake where the wave action of summer winds don’t quite reach. About 2 to 3 feet of thickness can be seen as a shaded line on your Humminbird sonar.

Seasonal hatches

Summer heat brings multiple insect hatches as the bottom of the lake becomes warmer. The first hatches are midge flies—little gnat-like bugs that fly out of the water and assemble as if they’re smoke columns all around the lake. These are actually bloodworms in the muddy bottom during the winter that hatch out as flies at the water surface. They are hatched without a mouth and assemble in clouds, mating and dropping their sinking eggs within a few days to begin the process again. Midge hatches start in the warming shallows and continue on and off all summer. Midge flies are an important food source for walleyes and other lake dwellers, but it takes a lot of small meals of midge flies to fill a walleye’s stomach.

Mayflies are larger than midges, with bodies that can exceed one inch in length. Walleyes love them and will eat them until their stomachs are packed to the gills! You may even catch a walleye that has mayflies in their mouth.

Many other critters hatch in the summer—like dragonfly nymphs and stone flies—but midge and mayflies dominate the list!

On the rise

When summer arrives, cabbage weeds can be like fields of corn, and milfoil looks like bushy plumes. Walleyes rise halfway—or all the way—to the top on the edge of weeds, facing the wind while picking off bugs swimming to the surface to hatch. They also hold on isolated bars and structures—quite often, halfway to the surface—on the main areas of lakes, facing into the wind and waves towards muddy basins.

It is not uncommon to catch walleyes 4 to 5 feet off the bottom in 10 feet of water, or 10 feet off the bottom in 20 feet of water. Many anglers have seen walleyes slashing on the surface to feed this time of year. If you are fishing with a bottom bouncer or a jig, you may be fishing underneath the fish.

Leveling with the walleyes

There are many approaches for catching suspended walleyes. For example, anglers on the Great Lakes use planer boards to pull ‘crawler harnesses and crankbaits with snap weights, paying close attention to diving charts to make their crankbaits run at the right depths. Another approach is casting a slip bobber with a leech or nightcrawler on a small jig or a Gamakatsu Octopus-style hook, using an appropriately sized sinker for the fishing depth. Pay attention to the depth at which walleyes appear on your fish finder. Remember to bring a retractable tape measure; it is an accurate way to measure distance with your slip bobber knot.

Speed corking is a fishing technique that has been around for decades. Anglers drive around, looking for suspended fish. They cast or drop a slip bobber behind the boat as they mark fish, while feeding out line and pulling the boat away 30 feet or more to leave distance between themselves and the walleyes. This technique is effective on fair and calm-water days.

When the wind blows, anglers use sonar to mark the fish. Then, using Spot-Lock on their trolling motor to hold in position upwind, 30 or 40 feet away from marked fish, they pitch back behind the boat, downwind. Upwind pitching with a bobber also works because your line stays straight up and down, but bows up slack when you fish to the side.

To run all of this without worry, my boat is rigged with an Amped 36-volt lithium trolling motor battery and one 12-volt 160-amp hour battery that runs all my graphs. Nothing is hooked to my starting battery except my outboard motor.

Drop in on the walleyes

Another approach I have been using for decades is well-known in bass fishing, but not highly used for walleye. This is a drop-shot rig and it’s “catching on!” (Pardon my pun!)

Simply tie on a Gamakatsu walleye wide-gap or Octopus-style hook using a drop-shot knot. You can find drop-shot knot diagrams for this popular bass technique online.

This knot ties the hook directly to the line with the barb pointing up and the sinker tied or tethered to the tagline below. The tagline is as long as the distance the walleyes are suspended off the bottom. Leave your tagline longer if you are changing depth so you can adjust your sinker deeper or shallower. I use 8-pound fluorocarbon leader material attached to my braid with a back-to-back Uni knot. My braid is 10-pound green or hi-vis. You can also use 8-pound fluorocarbon and just tie on the line you let off the reel.

A drop shot puts a leech, ‘crawler or minnow at the level of the fish on windy days. You don’t have to worry about a bobber floating away from the fish. Pitch out a drop shot with bait and watch on your MEGA Live. Pull it up to the walleye and hold it next to the fish. You can jig, tightline it or slowly pull away. When the walleye attacks your bait, pause to let it eat it and then set the hook with a tightening sweep.

Wind will have little effect on this approach. You can fish a drop-shot with bait faster than a slip bobber with bait. You can pitch to the fish, ahead of the fish or you pull it away slowly cat-and-mouse style. I always have a slip bobber rigged; however, I have found that the drop shot rules 6 to 7 days out of 10.

My stealth rig

There are many adaptations to many fishing techniques. After many years of using a drop-shot rig, I found better ways of doing it. When walleyes would pluck my leeches or short-bite a ‘crawler, I started tying rigs. One day while fishing in 4-foot-tall, slimy weeds, I tied a loop knot giving it a 3-inch finger, then added a red bead and a 5-foot tagline to a bullet sinker attached with a bead and a slip knot. I hooked on a leech and caught six walleyes in six casts. I tied up three more stealth rigs before my clients arrived! We limited out in one hour without tangling.

The extra finger of line allows the hook to go farther back in a walleye’s mouth. Sometimes, I clip the bottom of a loop knot and snell the hook on the finger. The trick is, don’t make the finger line too heavy or the presentation will sag or tangle. I use a longer rod to hold the line tight and high from a distance. If I am stealth rigging sand or rocks, I use a St. Croix Legend Elite 7-foot, medium-light, extra-fast action spinning rod. I use a medium, extra-fast if I’m fishing weeds, and a 6 to 6’3” if it’s windy. I use a 7’6” if my stealth rig is 10 feet or more off the bottom for an easier cast.

Tip: Remember to hold the rod tip slightly elevated and reel the line tight before you sweep the rod tip to set the hook.

Good luck on the water this summer! Don’t forget to drop in on some walleyes with Bro’s stealth rig!

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