Walleye Fishing in Ontario: Adaptability & Strategies for Success

 Whew ... I am finally back home after spending the past 10 days fishing for walleyes down in the Kawartha lakes region of southern Ontario.  And if I had to sum up the experience in one word, it would be "adaptable".  

 I mean, man, is there any other species of fish as flexible as old marble 'eyes?  I think not.  

As a matter of fact, the day before I started the long 2000 km (1200 mile) drive down - yes, Ontario is a huge province - I was catching good numbers of big walleyes in Lake of the Woods fishing breaklines, adjacent to sand beaches, in 20 to 30 feet of water.  When I texted this to buddy Pete Garnier, who is a living Kawartha lakes legend, Pete sent me back a single phrase response.   

 It read .... OMG!!!  

That is when I knew, right then and there, that the way I was picking off walleyes on my home water wasn't likely to entice many Kawartha lake fish.  Especially, the ones in Sturgeon Lake where the Bobcaygeon Can/AM walleye tournament was held last weekend.    

Indeed, biologists refer to walleyes as "eurybionts", which is nothing more than a fancy way of saying the giant perch tolerate a wide range of conditions.   

Geographically speaking, you can cast for them one day in the Mackenzie River in the Northwest Territories where it empties into the Arctic Ocean, and then fly the next day to Alabama and fish for them in a southern stream that spills into the Gulf of Mexico. In between, you can cast, drift, wade and troll for them in a huge number of equally disparate environments.  

And just as walleye prosper in lakes, rivers, reservoirs, creeks, streams, pits and ponds across the continent, they also adapt to a wide range of water temperatures, water clarity and variabilities in pH, dissolved solids, oxygen and carbon dioxide.  Believe it or not, tagged walleye have even been known to change their sex from one year to the next - but that is a story for another day.  

The bottom line is that walleye are so broadminded in terms of their environmental likes, and so able to adapt to conditions, that it is often difficult to pin labels on the beggars.
(Sturgeon Lake was "off limits" on Friday so we played over on Balsam Lake where Pete nabbed this nice walleye)


Indeed, when I hooked up with Pete and his buddies Kim, Fabian and Rob, (gentlemen, thank you for a wonderful time), I quickly discovered that Kawartha lakes walleyes are as fixated on weeds - cabbage, coontail and milfoil - as largemouth bass.   

And I am not talking about deep weedlines, either.  Rather, the fish were holed up in the shallowest, warmest, thickest, matted beds of vegetation that you could find.  Think the snarliest, nastiest, snaggiest weed cover you can imagine and that is where we located the fish.   

Which begs the question: why were the fish up so shallow in the hottest, steamiest, weediest water in the lake, under bright, blue bird skies and scorching heat and humidity?  Hadn't they read the rule book?  What about all the deep, cool, structure and cover?  

Well, I don't have a ton of experience walleye fishing down there to know, but I am convinced it boils down to the simple matter of food.  Because every time we flipped, pitched and casted our lures around the weeds, we caught perch, bluegills and rock bass as well as muskies, walleyes, smallmouth bass and largemouth bass.  But, when we pulled away from the weeds and fished, dare I say it, traditional walleye structure, our lures went untouched.

Find the food and you find the fish - every time!

(Obviously Rob Lafleur's bucktail looked like something this dandy walleye thought was edible!)