Pre-Spawn Walleye Movements: Where Fish Go Before the Run

Like many species this time of year, walleye are gearing up for the spawning season. When this happens, they start to move away from their winter grounds and towards their spawning grounds. But where do they go in between? Let’s find out.

The pre-spawn movement starts to happen for walleye once water temperatures hit the 38 to 45 degree range. With days getting longer, the water is able to warm to these temperatures now. Another shift in their behavior relates to their feeding habits.

In the winter, they typically only feed when they have to or when they have a really easy opportunity. As they head towards pre-spawn, they are going to start feeding much more heavily, as the spawn is going to require a ton of energy.

While some may think that as soon as conditions are right, these fish move straight into spawning grounds, that’s not actually what happens. Instead, they move towards the spawning areas much more gradually. Temperatures are still unstable this time of year, and the walleye want to be able to easily move back to their more stable winter areas.

So we know what the walleye are going to be doing this time of year, but where are they actually going to be located?

Especially early in the pre-spawn, it’s not a bad idea to check the deep holes that they spend their winters in. While they are going to be moving eventually, sometimes they are going to still be in the deeper holes in the lake or river you’re fishing, typically in the 15 to 45 foot range.

Now you might find an area like this, but you don’t find any fish in it. That’s likely because they’re more actively feeding and might be pushed up into nearby shallower water. Chances are, they won’t be too far away, as they’ll want to retreat back into these holes as temperatures change for the worse.

Another solid place to try is a major breakline near spawning areas. Similar to some other species, walleye use these breaklines just like a highway from deep water to shallow water. You’ll know you found a good breakline when the water goes from around 30 feet all the way up to around 15 feet fairly rapidly near spawning grounds.

The walleye are going to stack up in these areas near the upper edge of the break. Being in this area allows them to come up shallow and feed when they want to, while still being able to drop back down to deeper water with consistent temperatures when the weather changes.

If you’re trying for pre-spawn walleye in a river system, channel edges are a great place to look. These are areas that walleye are going to be staging in before moving into the spawning grounds. They’re similar to a breakline, as you’ll notice a steep drop-off from around 8 feet down to around 20 feet.

These areas are generally going to have reduced current, which means they won’t have to work as hard to stage in the area. They also have plenty of food coming to them from upstream that they can feed on all along the edge.

There are also some other pretty great staging areas that you can look for just outside of spawning grounds for pre-spawn walleye this time of year. If you’re fishing in an area where a river mouth dumps into a lake, that river mouth is going to be a hot spot. Deep edges outside of shallow reefs are another common place where they may stage and start feeding heavily.

Walleye can hold in these areas anywhere from a few days to a few weeks before the spawn, so getting out there and trying them is a pretty safe bet to go and catch a ton of pre-spawn walleye.