Fishing Article - Columbia River Walleye

by Glenn Summers

June is one of the best times of the year to target walleyes while trolling the
Columbia River. I could feel the questioning looks from my clients as I urged them
to continue to let their lines roll off their level-wind reels. The constant chop of the
3-foot waves on the Columbia River rocked the boat as we idled upstream, just
below the John Day Dam.

"Yeah," I said. "Let 'em out till you hit the second black streak marked on your
spools." I told them that they needed to get those Wiggle Warts out about 120 feet
behind the boat, along the gravel bar where they were deep enough to tempt finicky
walleyes. Deep enough" was about 15 to 18 feet down. That would put our lures
within 1 1/2 feet of the rocky bottom -- right where ole walleye is most of the time.

The bottom undulated here as it does anywhere in the Columbia. But our Wiggle
Warts would drag rocks and be a foot or so above the bottom the rest of the time.
This is a technique I've used to catch walleyes for better than 30 years, and it's a
consistent producer in the early summer months in the Pacific Northwest. The guys
in my boat were old hands at salmon and steelhead fishing in both the Pacific
Ocean and coastal streams, but they were new to walleye fishing on the Columbia
River.

My techniques seemed extreme to anglers used to fishing for silvers 20 or 30 feet
behind the boat. With light lines that test 10 pounds or less, I've found that trolling
lines out more than 100 feet will drive even shallow-diving lures like Wiggle Warts
down to 15 feet or deeper.

Read the rest of the Walleye fishing article here.