That was the great mystery. I talked my dad, who lives in Prince George to give up his beloved BC fishing to come over to the flat lands and tangle with what's locally known as pickerel. My choice was obvious, Calling Lake. For the entire summer I'd been making regular pilgrimages to this well-known hot spot and I was never disappointed. Every day I could count on catching big, beautiful plump walleye by the dozens and I had several days where we broke a 100.
So my buddy Trevor McLeod, my dad and I made the trip north from Edmonton to Calling. Everything was going great. The sun was out, there was hardly a breath of wind and the lake was flat calm. It was a day made to order.
I assured my dad that the fishing might have slowed as fall was upon us, but we'd certainly catch a bundle. So off we went, full of confidence with spinner blades and minnows in tow. The miles passed and the sun went high, then started to settle. What was going on? We couldn't buy a bite, not even a sniff. On a tip from a friend we moved shallower and got into some pike near the weedbeds, but still no walleye.
"I have an idea," I said to my dad and Trevor. We were over the bottom edge of a drop off and the lake was flat calm. "Just turn the motor off Trevor," I asked of him. He did and I dropped a jig and minnow to the bottom, then left it there. The extremely slow drift of the boat, slowly, ever so slowly dragged to jig right on bottom and in quick order, the rod started bending over. I set the hook and up came a walleye. Well we jumped all over that and all three of us were doing the 'do nothing' drag and ever few minutes or so a plump old walleye would come by and pick up the bait. It wasn't fishing like gangbusters, but our action went from no bites for the day to a bite or two every few minutes. What a turn around!
I've employed this slow jig drag technique many times since, pretty much anytime the fishing is slow and most times I've been rewarded. So come fall the walleye haven't stopped feeding. Instead, they've stopped chasing. By adjusting the presentation and slowing it down to a crawl, expect to get into good walleye fishing through the fall season.
