Jigging up some more walleye

I took my son and one of his buddies out this afternoon for a little chilly fishing. We started at locust reef and picked up 3 in about an hour but it was too slow to stay. We moved further north about a mile and started slowly picking away at them. We spent another two hours there and ended up with about a dozen nice fish. We were jigging with dark colors in 5/8 or 3/4 ounce hair jigs. The wind was perfect when we first got out there around 3:00 but it laid down a little as the afternoon went on. The only thing missing was the sun. Water color was better the further out we went.

Thanks for that report. Good data. I'm hoping to try the same thing Wednesday.

Forgive this post, but I've never jigged the west basin. Do you all spend more time looking for fish or do you simply head to a reef and work the edges hoping for the best?

I'd be interested to hear what the more successful fisherman have to say. My beginner's advice is to motor to the nearest pack of boats and drift with them. If there's no pack of boats, starting at the reefs sounds like a good strategy to me. If it's slow, move. Look for marks on your sonar.

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Originally Posted by nickpaolini81

Forgive this post, but I've never jigged the west basin. Do you all spend more time looking for fish or do you simply head to a reef and work the edges hoping for the best?

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I don’t consider myself an expert by any stretch but I’ll share my thoughts. I’m not a fan of heading for packs of boats because I like my space. Early in the spring, I pick a spot like one of the closer reefs and start looking for fish. If my electronics aren’t showing fish, I’m moving on. I will continue to look for fish as I’m
leaving because sometimes they are off the reef they were on the day before.

If you don’t have good electronics, consider getting a decent unit and learn how to read it. It will become your best tool.

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Originally Posted by nickpaolini81

Forgive this post, but I've never jigged the west basin. Do you all spend more time looking for fish or do you simply head to a reef and work the edges hoping for the best?

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You're not going to see a bunch of fish on your graph as you're shallow and you don't have much of a cone angle from your transducer......... so it's kinda a crapshoot - you can work on the pack edges but i had some of my best days away from the pack . Just start fishing...... there's plenty out there

If you have sidesscan on your graph that can help in the shallower ares to mark fish within a few feet of the bottom.