Walleye Explosion

The demise of Lake Huron alewives has meant so-so salmon fishing in that Great Lake, but has led to an amazing rebirth of walleye populations. Biologists say that alewives, an invasive species and favorite food of salmon, used to out-compete young walleyes.

Ground zero for this walleye explosion has been the expansive Saginaw Bay, encompassing more than 1,000 square miles in Michigan. Here, walleyes have weedy cover to hide and grow, and lots of emerald shiners to eat.

 Capt. Jeff Godi (989-686-7345; www.themichiganexperience.com) takes charter customers out of Linwood, Michigan, on the west side of the bay, usually delivering five-fish limits to each customer on spoons. Prime time, Godi says, is from May and usually into August, although this unusually hot summer has warmed the bay’s water to 81 degrees and pushed most of the walleyes into Lake Huron proper. Anglers target these fish out of Au Gres and Caseville, trolling for walleye suspended from 40 to 65 feet down. Saginaw Bay is bound to get better this fall as water temps start to drop; ice fishing ought to be fabulous.

Godi finds most of his Sag Bay ’eyes just three miles out from Linwood Beach Marina (989-697-4415; www.linwoodbeachmarina.com), where he keeps his 27 foot Sportcraft,—and where trailer boaters will find a nice launch, fish-cleaning facility and campground.

Walleyes in the bay spend most of their time near bottom, in depths of 18 to 26 feet. Godi likes a trolling spread of small spoons. Stinger Scorpions, which are two and a quarter inches long, are favorites, as the small size approximates those tasty shiners. Patterns incorporating purple are consistently reliable. A typical 10-rod spread starts with leadcore lines—25 yards of 27-pound Sufix with braided line backing—taken out to each side of the boat with Offshore planer boards. The second rod, run to the inside of the first, is identical. The third rod is 30 to 40 yards of leadcore (to take the spoon slightly deeper), also run out on a planer board. Then, a Dipsy Diver on 30-pound braided line is dialed to number three, to run high and wide with a fourth spoon. With 65 feet of line out, the Dipsy runs about 15 feet down. Finally, a downrigger takes a fifth spoon to just off the bottom, from the corner of the transom. The other side of the boat is close to identical, although Godi experiments with different colors of spoons to find the day’s hot ticket. He trolls a hair over two mph, and if the walleyes seem finicky, he switches over to spinner rigs baited with nightcrawlers and slows down to as slow as one mph. For the record, though, eager ’eyes stayed so active on spoons that last year, he only resorted to live bait once.

You want the closest thing to “easy” fishing for walleyes? Saginaw Bay is the answer.