Walleyes don’t leave during spring spawn

Walleyes can be caught virtually any time of year in Washington’s top walleye lakes, including Banks, Moses, Pothholes, Roosevelt and Scootenay Reservoir.

April poses the toughest challenge as walleyes tend to be focusing on their reproductive longings around spawning grounds, generally near areas of shallow hard bottom swept by waves and current.

As the spawning period wanes in May, the fish will begin spreading out and feeding more actively.

Check out the Rocky Ford Creek mouth at the north end of Moses Lake, for instance, where walleyes generally are in 8-10 feet of waters except in low-light conditions when they might be as shallow as 2 feet.

Walleyes often congregate near inflowing feeder streams, rocky shorelines, or shallow rock humps and reefs, depending on what’s available.

In reservoirs with hard-bottomed feeder streams, they typically run up-current at night to spawn on rocky shoals or points, lying in adjacent deeper pools during the day. Fish also may spawn on main-lake rock points.

In Washington, these feeder streams might be closed to fishing during the spring spawning season. For instance, portions of the San Poil, Kettle, and Spokane arms of Lake Roosevelt are closed until June 1.

During the spawning cycle and immediately thereafter, walleyes aren’t necessarily on the shallow rocks where they spawned. But they’re somewhere nearby, lying in cover or actively patrolling in search of a meal.