Fishing
Because walleyes are popular with anglers, fishing for walleyes is regulated by most natural resource agencies. Management may include the use of quotas and length limits to ensure that populations are not over-exploited. As one example, in the state of Michigan, walleye shorter than 15 in (38 cm) may not be legally kept, except in Lake St. Clair and the St. Clair River where fish as short as 13 in (33 cm) may be taken.
Since walleyes have excellent visual acuity under low illumination levels, they tend to feed more extensively at dawn and dusk, on cloudy or overcast days and under choppy conditions when light penetration into the water column is disrupted. Although anglers interpret this as light avoidance, it is merely an expression of the walleye's competitive advantage over its prey under those conditions. Similarly, in darkly stained or turbid waters, walleye tend to feed throughout the day. In the spring and fall walleye are located near the shallower areas due to the spawning grounds; and they are most often located in shallower areas during higher winds due to the murkier, higher oxygenated water at around six feet deep. On calm spring days the walleye are more often located at the deep side of the shoreline drop-off and around shore slopes around or deeper than ten feet.
"Walleye chop" is a term used by walleye anglers for rough water typically with winds of 10 to 25 km/h (6 to 16 mph), and is one of the indicators for good walleye fishing due to the walleye's increased feeding activity during such conditions. In addition to fishing the "Walleye chop", night fishing with live bait can be very effective.
"Walleye Jig" is another very effective approach for catching the fish. Simply tie on a 3/8 ounce jig and attach a minnow. Lower the jig to the bottom of a sandy bottom stream and slowly move the jig up and off the bottom. When you feel a tug – wait a moment, as walleye are cautious fish and it may just be nibbling at the bait, then hook the fish. Calm water in an anchored boat is ideal for this approach.
Read more about this topic: Walleye
Famous quotes containing the word fishing:
“It is long ere we discover how rich we are. Our history, we are sure, is quite tame: we have nothing to write, nothing to infer. But our wiser years still run back to the despised recollections of childhood, and always we are fishing up some wonderful article out of that pond; until, by and by, we begin to suspect that the biography of the one foolish person we know is, in reality, nothing less than the miniature paraphrase of the hundred volumes of the Universal History.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I confess I was surprised to find that so many men spent their whole day, ay, their whole lives almost, a-fishing. It is remarkable what a serious business men make of getting their dinners, and how universally shiftlessness and a groveling taste take refuge in a merely ant-like industry. Better go without your dinner, I thought, than be thus everlastingly fishing for it like a cormorant. Of course, viewed from the shore, our pursuits in the country appear not a whit less frivolous.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“O mud
For watermelons gutted to the crust,
Mud for the mole-tide harbor, mud for mouse,
Mud for the armored Diesel fishing tubs that thud
A year and a day to wind and tide; the dust
Is on this skipping heart that shakes my house,”
—Robert Lowell (1917–1977)