Recycled Walleyes

Not all spots are created equal. Some spots have the potential to hold a lot of fish. Some spots will also “recharge” faster. Recharge as in new fish moving in to take the place of fish that are caught. Sooner or later, however… too much fishing pressure will disrupt the school of fish making them more difficult to trigger and catch.

Fishing pressure often breaks up a large school of aggressive fish into smaller, scattered pods of fish that are not nearly as aggressive. Anglers often assume that stable weather and water temperature dictate how aggressive fish will be but the most important variable is fish concentrations. A lot of fish piled up on a spot are generally going to be aggressive because these fish have to be aggressive. Walleyes act much different when they are in the company of several other walleye.

Fishing pressure however can turn aggressive fish into passive fish because these schools of fish get broke up and thinned. Some lakes handle fishing pressure much better than others. Some spots also recycle with new fish much better. Recycling is crucial for spots to remain good. If new fish don’t move in to take the place of fish that were caught and kept, the spot dries up… the schools get smaller and more scattered and the fish that are left get much more difficult to trigger.

Often, new fish will move into a spot during the night so mornings are a good time to strike. There are also times when we see a new movement of fish occur during the middle of the day when the water warms up. Usually however, a period of rest is the best thing that can happen to a spot on most lakes. Week days might quiet angler pressure down but on heavily fished lakes, this period of rest will happen through the night. If you can imagine, scattered pods of fish pile onto a spot through the course of a night and accumulate. Come morning, the spot is recharged so to speak and the first boats on the spot pick off some easy fish until the school gets broke up again.

Late summer sometimes sees harsh weather systems that turn a lake upside down with strong winds. These major fronts often move fish around substantially. These fish that get moved around often pile up on the most obvious. Wicked fronts in late summer and early fall often recharge many of the “community spots.” By and large, community spots are large, obvious spots that usually hold fish but also attract a lot of angling pressure. Now a fish doesn’t know what a community spot is but usually, the attractiveness of community spots declines because so many boats working a spot makes these spots much less productive. If there is a time however when you can slide into these large obvious spots that see a lot of boats all summer and actually do well, it is after biological conditions move the fish around the lake.

Often, fish that have been making some major movements in a system are much paler in appearance. The fish almost look washed out in color. Fish that have been in the area for a long period of time often get much darker and prettier. This tells you a lot about how a spot is recycling. If you are finding new fish moving on to a spot that are nice and dark, they are sliding in from somewhere nearby. Could be the open water adjacent to the structure you are working or there could be a lot of fish in a general area and that means some of the other nearby structures that are similar also hold fish. If the fish are really pale, this usually means these fish are on the go and a particular spot just stalled them long enough to be patterned and caught.

Your electronics will often reveal just how many fish are on a spot but often… if you see a few fish there could very well be a lot of fish regardless of what electronics you use. The best way to reveal fish on structure is to move the boat up and down the break. Generally, if I see a handful of fish on a break line, I feel pretty good about fishing it as there are usually many more fish tucked into the blind spots that occur when a sonar signal echoes back the shallowest reading within the cone angle but hides everything else deeper. Another good indicator as to how many fish are on a spot, are the bites themselves. Often if there are a lot of fish in an area, the fish will really run after hitting the bait which is pretty easy to distinguish if using live bait rigs or slip bobbers.

Most of the time by late summer, the community spots and obvious bites have been beat to death and are usually something to avoid but there are situations where fishing the obvious can be very productive. Knowing and understanding the factors that can make these spots good again can often mean catching more fish. As a guide, my focus is on production. I am not above fishing a community hole if that is what I have to do to catch fish.

Editors Note: The author, Jason Mitchell is one of the most respected professional walleye guides in the upper Midwest (www.fishdevilslake.net) and host of Jason Mitchell Outdoors Television (www.jasonmitchelloutdoors.com).

Photo: The author Jason Mitchell is regarded as one of the top walleye guides in the region.