Rock Island walleye

[Jon]

My brother and I are wanting to give the walleye fishing a try this year at Rock Island but we really do not know what we are doing. Lived here all my life but never learned how to catch walleye. Anyone have any tips to help us catch a few? We will be fishing from a boat. I am not trying to find anyone's honey hole just trying to figure out how to catch a few. Walleye has always been the one fish I never seem to catch. I don't even eat them just want to catch and release.

Thanks,

Jon

 

[Grandslam11]

Just troll a spinner rig with a night crawler from there up to pates ford. Up and down the banks and you are bound to catch a few walleye along with a few other species.

 

[Jon]

Just troll a spinner rig with a night crawler from there up to pates ford. Up and down the banks and you are bound to catch a few walleye along with a few other species.

Thank you for the recommendation, I really appreciate it.

 

[WTM]

ill be trying them this year.......hopefully. never caught walleyes but years of sauger fishing and will be using the same tactics since they both have virtually the same spring patterns. ive usually already started in february but i dont fish in floodwater. the tactics we use is hair jigs tipped with minnows with a stinger hook fished in creek mouths usually but we did pretty good 4 years ago fishing an island point on the down stream side. have no idea why the liked that spot, but they did. we bump bottom while drifting with the current, have never fished any other way. they usually hug bottom when they are feeding.

water depth in those creek mouths is usually 15-20 ft. overcast days are the best, sunny bluebird days are the worst. i believe that they hate sunlight. i think they run up into the creek shallows at night to spawn/practice spawn and head back to the deeper water to stage at the creek mouths.

anyway good luck, i wish theyd stock them around here but they dont that im aware of, since the sauger have all but vanished.

 

[DTW2]

Orange hair jig with 3'' grub tipped with minnow, sonar jig tipped with minnow, hair tipped with minnow, jerk bait deep runner. YouTube is your friend.

 

[catman529]

From what I hear that place gets real crowded during the spawning run. Good luck


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[Daniel90]

From what I hear that place gets real crowded during the spawning run. Good luck


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crowded ain't even the word . 200 yard stretch 30 yards wide . 50 boats lined up and down at times. It's ridiculous some days


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[fishboy1]

seems that everybody thinks the only place to catch the walleye at RI is by the sandbar.

Talked with a TWRA/biologist and he said they move constantly in and out of that area. IF you get a stretch of stable weather, then you can get on a pattern. First big rain, pattern changes, start dumping water at the dam, pattern changes, start or stop generating...pattern changes.

If I can ever get a day off where its not dumping rain or RI is safely fishable, Im going to try fishing from the sandbar downstream. The walleye that do stack up at the sandbar during ideal conditions are coming from somewhere.