This is a technique that I think probably gets completely overlooked......and for obvious reasons. The traditional school of thought is that live bait will probably outfish any other lure or presentation for walleye year round and especially early in the season. There is a lot of truth to that indeed. If you fish for walleye you have probably experienced this yourself. After fishing the Canadian shield on vacations since 1985, you can bet I've tried just about everything possible to catch walleye from jigs & plastics to crainkbaits and many more assortments of lures. In recent years (the past decade) I have been fishing early in the year during the last week of May. I have never used live bait where we fly in because we never felt like we needed it and it's a little tricky to keep bait alive and well for 7 days out in the bush country. Fishing early in the year you have a chance to encounter cold water and sluggish fish. To maximize our potential to catch more #s and especially larger walleye (4lbs +) I started using jigs tipped with frozen minnows.....then I kicked it up another notch and bulked up the bread and butter shiners and advanced to Golden Roach Minnows.

Typically Roaches are used for luring big largemouth bass while bobber fishing here in Illinois where I live but I thought to myself....it's such a great looking minnow, silver and white, the scales shine and flake, great attractive bait and more hearty and durable than a typical shiner or bass/walleye minnow as labeled in bait shops. I buy them a couple weeks before our trip in large amounts, drain em' bag em' and freeze em' in amounts of about 25 per bag. Keep them frozen to travel to Canada by way of dry ice/cooler, keep them in the freezer up north juat as you would suckers or other dead baits for pike/musky/trout and there you have it. This is a little time consuming but well worth it. I checked with Border Patrol and our camp owner to varify that it was legal to transport these frozen minnows over the border and fish with them and it is perfectly legal and acceptable.

About the fishing now.....I normally use a 1/8th oz or 1/4 oz jig and hook the minnow through the mouth and out the top of the head. Many times we anchor on a bread and butter spot or drifting over a school of fish. Early in the year we are fishing 10 feet of water or less most of the time. I flip out my line nice and easy. Let it hit bottom, close the bail and very slowly drag it back to me and it doesn't take long before a walleye grabs this easy meal. This is effective for early season fish, post cold front fish and at night towards and after dark, it's deadly because you have that strong natural scent and the fish won't "swing and miss" like they sometimes do if you are casting and retrieving the traditional walleye lures. Again most of the big walleyes caught in our group early in the year have been taken day and night using this dead baiting jigging technique. The # of fish you can catch opposed to using soft plastics during these times can be as much as 3 to 1 or even 10 to 1 or more.

Summer I noticed is a different story because soft plastics and other baits work awesome but to maximize a spot or area you are fishing you should try this at some point during the session to give yourself a chance at that bigger fish in the school that may need to be finessed. Late summer it has worked as well in August in deeper water spots over reefs. Back Trolling if allowed or drifting and snap jigging to trigger hot summer walleye.

Again, this is what has worked for me and I know it could help others out there on thier favorite body of water, especially early season in Canada. I was a little hesitant to give this "secret" out in fact because it is so deadly (no pun intended) but I figure there is a lot of water out there, so as long as it doesn't increase the pressure and competition on my favorite lake in those particular spots, I should be just fine.

Manta Mike