Shallow water walleye?

On Sunday evening with the still wind and heat we thought that northerns might give us some action and bite. We headed to a shallow weedy bay. This bay averages about 3-4 feet deep with scattered weed and sand. My wife was casting a spinner bait when she saw a walleye follow it to the boat. I thought that was odd. A few minutes later casting an original floater I caught a 17 inch walleye followed a few minutes later by a thick healthy 20 inch walleye. I was surprised to find walleyes in that warm of water and so shallow. My question is do you think they are there still resting after the spawn? Or do they stay in that area year round? It is a spot we will try in the future again.

Thanks in advance

Year round.

If there is good forage in the bay with good ambush cover…. Why not right. It is common for walleyes to do this. They may not stay in that warm/shallow bay all day and night but using it to feed. If that make sense.

I have seen this bite many times on a Flowage systems in WI and the St Croix River… It usually was after a few days of steady wind hitting the area and pushing the forage into those spots. The walleyes seem to hang out during a day or two after. This is when I have run across it anyways.

We caught them in 2-6 feet of water all weekend. The shallows were full of spot tail shiners. They go where the food is.

26-30’ was where we saw the most action for walleye this weekend.

I have seen many walleyes – large schools of them even – relating to shallow cabbage weeds in 3’ of water in mid- to late-July on sunny, warm days. I’m talking in the middle of the daytime. Stumbled onto this while fishing other species. Apparently, walleyes don’t read the books and magazines on how they are supposed to act. It’s definitely a thing.

Some walleyes always go shallow to feed.

I was out this morning with the wife and from 8 to about 11 we seen many walleyes in the shallows. Didn’t expect it and we were casting for pike (go figure)

BrianF wrote:

I have seen many walleyes – large schools of them even – relating to shallow cabbage weeds in 3’ of water in mid- to late-July on sunny, warm days. I’m talking in the middle of the daytime. Stumbled onto this while fishing other species. Apparently, walleyes don’t read the books and magazines on how they are supposed to act. It’s definitely a thing.

X2!

Have a lot of theories but whatever the reason, they are there, ask bass fishermen.

Imo there could be a tie to stocked fish, raised in weedy shallow ponds, it’s natural to how they were raised to be shallow and feed shallow.

Small gils are a common denominator in nontypical, shallow, weedy, more bass/sunfish lakes. Even on typical up north, sandy, rocky, classic walleye waters, there’s shallow fish all spring, summer, fall long.

And it’s not just small walleyes. Have individual lake pb to that lake on multiple lakes that are mid to upper 20″ fish. Biggest on the pattern is 29″es for me and the fw.

The bite windows come and go and at times there seems to be triggers, other times, they just get going for no obvious reason like low light, cloud cover, wind picking up, storms approaching, etc.

A small jig/minnow/crawler/leech, shallow crank, lipless gil colored baits, plastics, spinner baits of all kinds, large willow leafs are personal favorites, slip bobber rigs, split shot rigs, etc all can be effective.

There’s usually lots of void stretches of water, then areas that seem like there just shouldn’t be that many fish, that shallow, in that area. Doesn’t really matter what we think or why the fish are where they are, but if they are there, it is an extremely fun way to fish. It feels more like bass fishing, with a panfish twist. Have 5 kids and the multi species that can be caught doing it can make for a fun day on the water. City/metro lakes have a lot of shallow eyes and imo its because of lack of classic walleye food, on classic walleye structure.