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Wildlife biologists Lisa Einfelt and David Wahl conducted a
study on walleye predation habits and found some interesting
results. The first result observed was that Walleye are more
pursuers of prey as opposed to stalkers. They follow schools
of bait fish and look for opportunities. They usually attack
and consume any baitfish that strays outside the school.
This indicates that you should always fish your lure on the
extremities of baitfish schools as opposed to the middle of
bait fish schools presenting the feeding walleye with that
easy opportunity.
Next it was interesting to find out their point of attack.
I’ve seen it suggested that walleye hide in wait and attack
from the side. This wasn’t the case in this study. It seems
the walleye like to follow and attack from below and behind
inhaling the baitfish from the tail region. Next, they
manipulate the prey in their mouth to allow for head first
swallowing and ingestion. The exception to this rule is when
they are attacking a larger bait fish which would be
difficult to maneuver prior to swallowing. This requires a
head first attack which does occur but on a lesser scale.
This makes a good case for using trailer hooks in the
presentation of your lure to ensure you take advantage of
the walleyes attack habits. And yes they did find that
larger walleye tended to select larger prey.
Walleye chose prey sizes that were toward the upper end or
larger than those predicted to be optimal. For instance they
observed a 100-mm walleye consumed prey over a 20-mm size
range, whereas for 200-mm fish, this range was about 50 mm.
It seemed that body depth of the baitfish offers more of a
constraint than body length. For bait fish with larger depth
bodies the walleye would selectively pick out smaller
targets. They also preferred baitfish with more of a contour
at the head and the tail. This probably has a lot to do with
their smaller mouth openings and has been learned over
thousands years of evolution.
The lesson here is to fish lures with proper contour that
have less depth and may be a little longer in size. It also
seemed that Walleye preferred bait fish that lacked a spine
and stiff body structure. Even though gizzard shad have more
body depth they lacked a spine and had bodies that could
easily be compressed for swallowing. Gizzard shad were
preferred over both golden shiners and especially blue gill.
Learn what baitfish exists in the fishery you are going to
be fishing. Next watch the hatch so to speak utilizing your
knowledge of the baitfish that would be preferred based on
the above results.
Obviously blue gill are less preferred and golden shiners and
especially gizzard shad are more preferred targets. Do your
homework. Walleye also don’t like to put a lot of energy
into their pursuits. Their prey preferences were related to
the amount of time and energy spent on capture. The walleye
could more easily follow and get closer to the schooling
Gizzard shad and didn’t have to spend a lot of excess energy
with wasted missed strikes. Gizzard shad presented more easy
targets and thus were taken more often than the other 2
species. This is not really newsworthy. It simply
substantiates what most walleye fishermen already know.
Provide an easy target and get more strikes.
In conclusion knowing the predatory habits of the walleye
does allow a fisherman an advantage. Utilizing this
information can provide any serious walleye fisherman the
edge in any of his or her fishing expeditions. |
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