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Name/Relations || Range/Sizes || Habitat & Habits ||  Notes
click to enlarge Note: Be careful of the teeth in larger walleyes.  Opaque eye.

Common Name: Walleye
Other Common Names:  Walleyed pike, jack salmon
Scientific name:Stizostedion vitreum
Family:  Percidae  (Perches)
Related Species:  Sauger, Saugeye (hybrid), Yellow Perch, Blue Pike

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Range: Northern two-thirds of North America including the Great Lakes and tributaries, Mississippi River System and basin, the Appalachians, and Ozarks.  Stocked widely throughout North America.

Sizes:  up to and over 28lbs, but common 1lb-8lbs, over 10lbs is a trophy in most areas.
 
 

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Habitat:  Very adaptable.  Mostly large rivers, lakes, and reservoirs, 50 degrees F- 65 degrees F, with clear to slightly turbid waters and rocky to gravely bottoms.

Spawning Habits: Walleye move in schools into weedy/gravely shallows at night in the spring when the water hits 45-55 degrees F, preferably areas with a light current, and over the period of a week multiple males engage the larger females, dropping the eggs onto the gravel or weeds, all at night.

Feeding Habits:  Schooling (small fish), cruising, and ambushing predator.  Eats crustaceans, worms, leeches, minnows, and insects  when younger; moves into a mostly fish diet as it grows.  Larger walleye consistently forage on smaller sunfishes, shad, smelts, chubs, shiners, sculpins, small trouts, and especially smaller perches.  Feed in shallower water at night (hence its specialized eye), around sunrise, and around sunset, though can bite all day in deeper water, especially around points.
 
 

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Notes:  Another species targeted by a substantial pro circuit, with lots of specialized boats and tackle available.  Very popular through out most of its range, and pursued year-round, but best targeted Oct-Mar in the southern half of its range.  Also commonly caught via ice fishing.  Techniques for the larger fish in reservoirs include slow trolling large plugs, bouncing minnows along the bottom, at the mouths of feeder creeks and rivers, near deep structure points and drop-offs, and behind tailraces.  Bouncing jigs tipped with minnows or leaches off the bottom on 8lb-4lb test line is also popular and effective.  It will strike a wide variety of baits and lures and has entire publications devoted to its pursuit.  It is also a very good tasting fish, ditto for its roe, though this fish is also becoming a catch-and-release species (the yellow perch are even better eating anyhow).
 
 

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