Some of the best walleye fishing is coming this fall. In September, October, November and even December, the temperatures drop, the walleyes are hungry and there are fewer anglers and boaters on the water. It makes for a perfect storm of epic walleye action!

Different bodies of water have their own hot lure and technique. If you put that lure on or near the deep-water edge, that’s where the active fish hang out. Whether I fish a river or lake, I always look for an edge to get an edge over the rest of the anglers out there.

Fall fishing starts with a little planning. Check out current and past fishing reports on social media for the lake you intend to fish and then scour a topographic map to determine sharp, deep-water drops. These edges hold walleyes as well as other predators like muskies, pike, smallmouths and largemouth bass.

If there is a weed edge on this drop, so much the better. Deep-water weed edges predominate in clear water. I like to start off with an aggressive maneuver: a 1/2-ounce blade bait, ripped quickly. You can troll back and forth around .4 mph along this edge, raising, lowering and ripping the blade bait. Because of its design, it will fall fast and attract predators with vibration on the lift.

One thing for sure: When a walleye hits a blade, it smacks it! I’ve had more than one rod ripped out of my hand as I scrambled to grab it before it went over the side.

My blade of choice is a 1/2-ounce BFishN Tackle B3 Blade bait. It comes in hot colors like green glow tiger, glow pink and glow mud minnow, with 3D prism eyes, chip-proof paint, perfect balance and ultra-sharp Mustad treble hooks attached via split rings. It has an intense amount of vibration on the lift and is balanced to fall without the hooks hanging up upon itself.

To get the proper action and precise feel, I use a St. Croix Eyecon Snap Jig rod; it has a fast tip, enough power to rip a hookset and will give you a fun fight. It’s perfect for rippin’ blades. I’ll put 10-pound-test Pro green line on an Okuma Ceymar C-30 spinning reel and tie on a 3-foot length of 14-pound Trilene XT mono to a size #1 VMC crankbait snap. This particular snap is rounded and gives the blade plenty of natural action. You need a snap because the holes on the top of the blade are not perfectly smooth and might cut your line.

Why a mono leader? Trilene XT mono is stiff, and it floats. This keeps the blade from tangling up on the line. Why 10-pound Power Pro Green braid? It is ultra-thin, so you can feel max vibration and know when the tiniest bit of weed snags up on the blade. Plus, this line is bright chartreuse, and you can see when your line jumps when a walleye swallows it up on the fall.

Snap jigging bucktail jigs and jig-n-plastic combos is another great way to pound on the walleyes in fall. Walleyes can be super aggressive, so finesse techniques are not necessary. I’ll use a 1/4- to 5/8-ounce BFishN Tackle Bucktail jig or an H2O jig in the same weights with either a straight AuthentX 3.25-inch Paddletail or a 3.25-inch Pulse-R. These three offerings present slightly different actions. The Bucktail fishes fast—really fast. It doesn’t seem like it would work as well as it does, but it does, because it produces violent reaction strikes from walleyes everywhere.

I’ll use that same St. Croix Snap Jig rod, but I’ll remove the VMC snap and tie it directly to my mono leader. Again, this leader keeps the bucktail from tangling and the rod provides the perfect action.

Motions vary from wrist snaps to full arm rips; you just need to figure out what they want on a given day. I like to aggressively snap and then let the jig fall on a tight line as I slowly move along the breakline at around .4 mph. This is a killer presentation to locate fish. Once I find them, I may put out one or two deadsticks set around a foot off bottom with jigs and live bait, while I snap the initial rod.

Jig-n-plastic offers a slightly different presentation. The AuthentX Paddletail is thin and solid. It has a small, high-speed vibrating tail that really calls walleye in. The Pulse-R has a larger, wider tail that is in constant motion. The body is bigger, has ribs and is much more flexible. Your job as a walleye angler is to figure out what the walleyes want. If you want to catch the largest fish this fall, put one on and snap your wrist.

If you enjoy walleye fishing, you’ll find plenty of helpful walleye fishing insight in every issue of MidWest Outdoors. Subscribe on our website.