Walleye on poppers?

[Fly-Swatter]

Has anyone caught walleye on top water? I never heard of this until...

Sunday evening I fished the North Branch of the Susquehanna from 5:30 - 8 PM. I started below a good riffle using a white Murdich Minnow. It was money. I landed 5 smallies from 12 to 17 inches in about an hour and jumped a handful more. The biggest was the pig in the photo.

At dark, on my way back to my truck, I took a few casts with a gurgler near a stream mouth. A fish slammed the gurgler on the third cast. TO my shock, it was a small walleye (see photo).

I don't normally fish for walleye. In fact, it's been about 35 years since I caught any and that was in Canada. I've known walleye are in the Susky and thought about targeting them, but I assumed I would have to go deep and slow (sink tip, clousers, etc.).

Anyway, energized by this serendipitous catch, i cast a few more times. WHAM! Another walleye! This one was pushing 20 inches!

I lost a 3rd that I assume was a walleye.

Needless to say, I'll be hitting that area hard over the next few weeks.

BTW: Are walleye "warmwater" fish (forum clarification question). :-?

 

[Fredrick]

Nice catches . I have never heard a walleye hitting a popper . I think they are considered a cool water fish .

 

[SurfCowboyXX]

I'm pretty sure that they are warm water fish, as they are members of the perch family. When I was younger I caught them at night on conventional poppers while fishing for stripers on Smith Mountain Lake. If they have the feedbag on, they're gonna eat.

 

[purplewoolly]

A few small ones (10") during the white fly hatch but never on poppers. Good fish, great way to wind down "summer".

 

[Fly-Swatter]

Cold water v. warmwater : Trout v. everything else (or so it seems).

I went out at dusk again last evening. I was surprised by how shallow the smallies were. In some spots their backs were barely covered. I figure they were close to shore chasing bait.

I caught one small walleye and lost another (on poppers). The 2nd one felt heavy.

I plan on bothering the fish again either tomorrow or Friday as the front moves through. That should help things to pick up a bit.

 

[Dave_W]

I've never caught a walleye on a popper (or any other surface lure that I can recall) and I do a lot of popper fishing.

With that said, it doesn't come as a complete surprise that you've experienced this. Walleyes can be aggressive at times and often feed high in the water column or in shallow water, especially at night.

If they have been targeting baitfish at or near the surface, catching them on a gurgler fly makes sense, especially considering that you got them right at dusk.

 

[icyguides]

I caught a 17' walleye on a white gurgler this past June while fishing at night. I was pretty shocked too when i saw it was a walleye.

 

[moon1284]

In the mid 90s I caught quite a few walleye at night on a perch colored storm chug bug (popper) on spinning great. I got them up to around 20 inches.