Trip Report Walleye in Northwest Arkansas

[geofri]

Freshwater forum still pretty dead, but I'm not giving up on it yet.


Northwest Arkansas.. it's gotten quite cold. My blood was thinned out by Florida life over the past few years. Still trying to embrace the cold.

The striped bass started dispersing and heading upstream to the lower vis waters in the reservoir I am diving so I started looking for walleye more(I do prefer their meat over striper).

As the water temps dropped through the late fall into winter ( water temps 60-50F) walleye started coming into the shallows and we have been seeing them as shallow at 6FT! 15ft seems to be the average depth they were cruising in amongst the trees.

I threw some clips together on youtube to show what to expect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjY3h61jEWc

As the water temperatures have continued to drop below 50F(especially after that year end storm "Elliott" with sub zero temps) the walleye have disappeared from the normal hunting grounds and I have yet to re-locate them. Not sure if they headed for deeper and warmer water or moved to the shallows.

Hoping to make the first dive of the new year this weekend.. update to follow.