Walleye habitat?

[beaverfan]

I went fishing for Walleye once about 15yrs ago up on the CR and I want to start targeting them a little closer to home. Multnomah Channel has them and I'm sure a good part of the lower Willamette has them as well. My question is what kind of habitat do they prefer and what should I use. I seem to remember fishing drop offs and rocky bottom areas, is that a good place to start? Should I use like a worm harness, or a lure?

 

[Troutier Bassier]

Trolling with Bottom Walkers and Worm Harnesses is what a lot of People do. You can also Jig, or use Crankbaits. Remember, Walleye see the color Green the Best from a distance, and see Red from close up.

Rocky Bottoms are a good year round Producer. Id start there.

 

[kirkster]

walleye

walleye

My dad lives in bordman Oregon and fishes the cr every chance that the wind doesn't blow him off the river. To troll a worm harness you need an electric moter and go as slow as you can. just enough to spin and you cantget slow enough to be productive with a gas kicker. And he only trolls the worm harness going down stream and when you want to troll up stream he pulls plugs like a hotlips. As far as structure when he trolls it is a plain sand bottom. Now my dad doesn't jig for them but a lot of people up there do and they do jig around the rocks like you stated. I think the most important key is depth. In the spawning stage he fishes water any where from 8-15 feet after the spawning stage they move to deeper water the last time I fished with him was in june and we were fishing 30-40 of water. and he says he fishes sometimes up to 50-60 feet you just have to find what depth there at and make sure your bottom walker is constantly ticking the bottom. When I first started fishing walleye I had a hard time detecting the bite. If the tip of your rod pulls down like six inches and stays there kinda like you just trolled by a twig and grabbed it its a fish set the hook and set it hard. I hope this will help you out my dad seems to be pretty successful I talked to him last weekend and he told me he boated his 150 th walleye for the year so far. And his biggest one this year he had mounted it was 18.7 pounds close to the state record. If you have any more questions let me know if I can't answer it I can find out.

 

[ShdwmnkyX]

Probably a dumb question. Is the CR the Columbia River?

 

[beaverfan]

Yup, sure is.