Good month of action left for late-winter, early-spring walleye

Rich's call came at the right time.

My wife and I were baby-sitting for our 3-month old granddaughter and I needed a change of routine, as well as the inhaling of a teasing, springlike, odoriferous environment.

"Better have fresh line on your reels and get your jig box sorted, because as you know, you are going to lose a lot of jigs and minnows," Rich instructed.

We launched Rich's boat on the Fox River and slowly made our way to territory just below the McHenry Dam.

I can't figure out why Illinois fishermen go absolutely nuts for walleye. They will travel over a thousand miles just to be able to come home with some filets in their coolers and a bagful of bragging rights and stories as to how they lost a 30-incher right at the boat.

As many of you already know or perhaps remember from decades of columns, I enjoy sharing my desire to eat northern pike versus walleye. I personally find once a pike filet is deboned, nothing except encrusted halibut can top a pike meal, especially in the flavor department.

Anyway, Rich and I started our hunt for early-spring, late-winter walleye near the dam.

Based on every expert's opinion, walleyes, especially the larger females, gravitate toward the dam to start the annual spawning ritual. The experts contend that once the river's temperature reaches 44-50 degrees, the fish become active and hungry.

That fact is slightly different from other fish species when they start spawning. I've had trout and salmon go into a lockjaw state when those fish are doing their dance.

Even though the river level was a bit high with water clarity stained with a murkiness very similar to the Wisconsin River, we both new if we used brightly colored jigs and bigger minnows that we might be able to convince some fish to strike.

Here's the tackle rundown.

I brought two Grandt Custom 6-foot-6 medium spinning rods rigged with spinning reels loaded with 6-pound and 8-pound test mono. One setup had a yellow fluorescent ⅛-ounce jig tied on the line while other setup had a white fluorescent ⅜-ounce weedless jig tied to the 8-pound mono. We had a combination of fathead and shiner minnows in the bucket.

Our sonar indicated we were in a slack-water pool with an 8-foot depth. That's where we started jigging. It wasn't two minutes before I felt a slight tick on the rod. I set the hook and brought in a sheepshead (white drum). Good eating when smoked, but not the target that day.

The slack water allowed us to maneuver ever so slightly without going out in to the main current. In fact, we moved about a couple feet and repeated the "drop" process.

Because of the rod sensitivity, it was much easier to detect a strike compared to the times when I used different rod blanks. And there are some times when you'll see a strike before you'll feel it. That happens when then line starts moving either sideways or back and forth.

Rich and I had immediate strikes and we hauled in a pair of walleye twins. The twins measured 19-inches each.

The jigs went back down and once again we had immediate strikes.

Two more fat fish slid into the net. We slipped the hooks out and returned them to the water.

The action went on for another hour and then the curtain came down.

So we moved across the current to another slack pool and caught a few more spawners.

All told, we caught and released 15 fish using jigs and minnows.

A word of caution: Try to find some jigs with metal or extra-tough weed guards to help protect your offering from getting hung up in the rocks.

You'll have about a month of good action until the walleye decide they need to move into deeper water.