Reading water color for more crankbait walleyes

[rcolson29]

Nice article, and appreciate you sharing the alternative satellite imagery site!

We were fishing west of the islands last year late March on the first day of our trip, and the water was definitely too dirty. We only had a couple hours to fish and marking plenty so hung with it. What surprised me was how good the late evening bite became in that dirty water. If memory recalls we ended with 8, and many came off a black and gold deep husky jerk. Guess it just had the right contrast in that muddy water. Having said that I won't intentionally seek out that type of water. Definitely prefer the chalky green as described.

[slimshady]

Nice article, and appreciate you sharing the alternative satellite imagery site!

We were fishing west of the islands last year late March on the first day of our trip, and the water was definitely too dirty. We only had a couple hours to fish and marking plenty so hung with it. What surprised me was how good the late evening bite became in that dirty water. If memory recalls we ended with 8, and many came off a black and gold deep husky jerk. Guess it just had the right contrast in that muddy water. Having said that I won't intentionally seek out that type of water. Definitely prefer the chalky green as described.

Thanks. When it comes to "dirty water" there are also levels within that category. I have done well in water that looked dirty to the eyes, but I could still see my prop. Here's a photo of water that was "dirty", yet we still caught some and I could still see my prop.



The other scenario when you can sometimes catch lots of walleyes in water that would normally be considered "too-dirty" is in the spring when you get warm surface water being pushed into shore by wind. Especially in the afternoon. I have seen times when the main lake might be 38-39 degrees, but the water near-shore with wind blowing in might be 8-10 degrees warmer than that. The baitfish will stack up in the warm water and the walleyes will follow, and they will sometimes be up in water less than 10 feet deep. As I mentioned, for this to happen, it requires wind to be blowing towards shore. The harder it blows and the longer it does that, the more the warm water stacks up. Unfortunately, the waves can also get pretty nasty in those areas, so it isn't the most comfortable situation to fish.