Fly Fishing For Spring Walleye

This is not a walleye that I caught on a fly, but if I do catch one, you better believe you will be seeing a picture of it!

I love fly fishing with all my heart, obviously.  I have certain places that I fish that have memories attached to them that will last me a lifetime, and there have been some very memorable fish that have come from those places that are now memorialized in frames in my basement.  Now before you start to think that this is some sort of "bragging rights" session, stay with me here.  With each of these memories there is a little bit of a dark side.  Whatever technique I have used, whatever the location was, and whatever the time of year was, I get this spot in my brain that commits all of that info to memory and also thinks that I can replicate the same experience under similar conditions.  Maybe it is from my formidable years of playing sports and being taught to complete an action time after time in the same way.  A baseball swing, a free throw motion, even swinging a driver on the golf course.  This sort of thinking process can be beneficial to anglers, but a better angler is able to adjust to weather conditions, is proficient with a wide variety of flies, and can change techniques on a dime without hesitation or overthinking.  In a nut shell, I am not that way yet.  I get in ruts.  I stick to the same old flies, fish the same spots, and fish them the same way...a lot.  I know this.  It is a flaw.  I am working on changing that in an effort to become a better angler.  My thinking process of "eventually the wrong fly will be the right fly if I fish it long enough" is not the way to go.  Sure it will catch fish a lot of the time, but I want to catch fish all the time.  Then again, don't we all?

So I try to push myself out of my comfort zone.  I force myself to try flies that I have never tried before, fish spots I have never fished before, and fish for species I have never fished before.  Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't, but I am always a better angler for the experience.  That's why I want to try to catch a walleye on a fly this spring.

Right off the bat, you probably realize that there are a few obstacles that stand in my way.  Missouri is not exactly known as the Walleye Capital of the World like Canada or Minnesota.  However we do have some nice sized populations in the state so there is a chance.  A walleye is typically a deep water fish that is not commonly sought by fly fishermen.  However, there is one time of year that walleye cruise into some shallow water where a guy with a traditional fly fishing outfit might have a chance to hook into one of these bottom dwellers.

I talked with Matt Sutton, the owner of Rainbow Fly Shop, about this the other day and have done a very small amount of research on the topic.  Please do not take this post as the holy grail of walleye fly fishing.  It is simply a collection of thoughts and ideas that might or might not work for catching a walleye on a fly around these parts (Missouri and Kansas), but they are leads which will hopefully get me closer to landing one of these toothy critters of the deep on a fly.  Here's what I know and here's what I am going to try.

I know that each spring walleye spawn along dams like the ones on Smithville Lake, Blue Springs Lake, Longview Lake, and Lake Jacomo.  I have to think that other lakes like Truman will play out in a similar way as well.  The males show up first and the larger females show up second.  I know that these fish are in the shallows not to feed but rather to spawn and that means that you are not going to get a solid strike, but rather a reaction strike out of frustration or aggression.  I think that also means that keeping little if any slack in the line would be important so you can feel every little bump or slap and I have a feeling that a slow hook set will result in a missed strike.  I am also going to set the hook on EVERYTHING!  Like my dad's best friend says, would you rather set the hook and know if you had a bite or not set the hook and wonder.

I also know I am going to lose some flies in the rocks and that bouncing a clouser off a boulder is going to feel a lot like a reaction strike.  I am going to try fishing from a boat with a sink tip leader and off the dam with a weighted fly and unweighted fly line.  I am also going to experiment with some longer leader that is around 9 feet long.

As far as flies go, my small amount of research has suggested leech, minnow, and crayfish patterns.  I am more incline to fish the leech and minnow patterns to avoid getting snagged in rocks and I can cover more water in a shorter amount of time.  I also plan on sticking to darker colored patterns like black, olive, and I have never fished anything purple in my life, but I might this year.  Slow retrieves will also be important to keep flies down and to keep a fly in the face of any walleye for as long as possible.

I have also been told that cloudy and/or rainy days as well as evenings tend to make walleye more active.  I think fishing at night would be a lot of fun, but climbing around on large boulders near ice cold water sounds like a recipe for disaster.  Translation: I will probably try it once just to say I did it.

Here is a link to the first article I ever read about fly fishing for walleye, and goes into a little more detail in terms of sinking line types and sink rates.
http://www.cabelas.com/product/Fly-Fishing-for-Walleye/532164.uts