Walleye Fishing With Sam Anderson Questions and Answers

Q: Spring Walleye?
spring walleye season is just a few weeks away. we are fishing a main river chanel that dumps into a large resevoir. were the water starts to calm down. my question is to go for the large females would you try to finess them with small bait as in the jig and minnow or would it be best to try the larger rubber type baits. i know that they dont feed much during that time of year.my thoughts are to go big. what would you sugest? one more question. my partner and i was fishing a walleye tornament at glendo resevoir in early june i found several large walleyes in the flooded trees. for two weeks i fished in the trees and caught several 5lb to 7lb fish the day before the tournament we checked the trees pre fishing for 15 minuts and caught a 8.1/2lb and a 9.3/4lb and left it alone. the next day we fished the same area for 5 hours and caught one 20in fish. do you think the fish were still there? and what would you have done? the second day the fish were back we fished for 35minuts and weighed in 26.42lb. thanks for taking the time to respond .. good luck in 2001 your loyal fan

You seemed to have some good ideas for enticing those big walleyes to bite. Often times those walleyes are going to take a bait differently depending on the type of body of water. In a river, I would probabley bulk up a little or maybe fall back on a small jig and minnow.

In your situation, with the reservoir, I would try using a plain Lindy rig with a minnow. Try using different sizes of minnows until you get results. One new technique that you may fins useful is the NEW Lindy No-Snagg system. The new part of this system is that it incorporates a snagless hook into the equation. I think this may be one of the hottest selling little numbers for fishing lakes and reservoirs for the coming year.

Try it in the trees also. Those fish that you were catching actully were there on the first day of the tournament. Youmay try to think back and remember if you did anything dramatically different.

* Did you make any loud noises to spoke the fish out or push them tight to the bottom?

These are just a few suggestions...there is a chance that the forage that was holding those walleyes in the trees was blown out of the area...or maybe a large predator(pike) moved in and pushed out the walleyes.

Q: Mississippi river?
Hi Sam, I have read alot of your posts and articles and have leared alot from reading them. I thank you for being open and honest on your posts. I have a question for ya. I will be fishing the upper iowasections of the mississippi river around mcgregor and victory areas early this April. I have not fished this area at this time of the year.Would like to know what depths I should concentrate on when fishing around the dams and what depths to concentrate on when fishing down stream from the dams at this time of year. Feel free to throw in acouple more pointers if you know of any.? Good luck this year on the trail. Thanks for all the great articles. Are you fishing the Rcl series?. Sam Andersen Fan!

I have not fished that area either. However, there are a few things that I would look for. #1 is current speed. If it is pushing hard you will want to work in closer to shore. If the current is mild to medium swiftness, then you can work the mid range areas or the middle sections on the wing dams.

Try covering water with a three way rig and a rapala. Or better yet, try the new rapala tail dancer or STORM thunder crank...this will be a hot number on rivers!! Just flat line or cast this little number and you'll be sure to get bit.

If your planning on going any time in the next few weeks or month I would spend most of my time within five miles of the main dam areas. Check out the packs and then look for eddy areas down stream that fish can use for primary feeding areas. Without the traffic and pressure.