Mark Courts knows quite a bit about catching Minnesota's pressured walleyes. Photo by Tim Lesmeister

When a discussion springs up about pressured walleyes, it often revolves around Mille Lacs.

Since this huge body of water is only an hour-and-a-half from the Twin Cities and it has a reputation as a "walleye factory" even as big as it is, there is a tremendous amount of fishing pressure there. Those walleyes in Mille Lacs have seen every style of live-bait rig, every type of crankbait pattern, and every spinner and jig color that has ever graced the boxes of walleye anglers throughout Minnesota. That means the walleyes in this heavily pressured lake are conditioned to anything and everything that gets placed in their range. Unless the forage base is at a low point, walleyes can be tough to catch.

There are other lakes that fit into the same category as Mille Lacs. Lake Waconia just west of the Twin Cities, Lake Osakis, Lake Mary near Alexandria, Winnibigoshish and neighboring Cass all have reputations as productive walleye fisheries, and the result is added angling pressure and conditioned fish.

Is there a way to get around this conditioning?

According to veteran professional tournament angler Mark Courts, there is.

"Walleye fishermen are a predictable bunch," said Courts. "They tend to fish the same techniques on the same structure, and on those lakes that get the heavy pressure, that means there's an entire group of fish that will react negatively to those textbook presentations. In situations like this you should target walleyes that often get ignored with techniques that these fish will react to positively."

With that in mind, let's have Courts instruct us on how he would catch pressured walleyes on those busy lakes.

MILLE LACS
"If you want to get a bait in front of walleyes on Mille Lacs that haven't seen a lot of pressure, you have to go to the weeds," said Courts. "There are big cabbage beds on this lake that are full of walleyes and they never get touched. Muskie fishermen catch walleyes with those big baits, so think about how well you could do if you actually target these fish."

His favorite lure for those Mille Lacs weedy walleyes is the 1/16-ounce Weed-Weasel jig by Northland Tackle or the Lindy Timb'r Rock Jig, both top lures for presenting bait in heavy vegetation.

"In the sparse weeds in deeper water I'll tip the jig with a leech or half a nightcrawler," instructed Courts. "I just cast the jig way out and let it sink to the bottom and then slowly retrieve it back to the boat. You get hung up, but once you get the hang of it you can slip the jig off the vegetation and keep the retrieve going."

Courts added the fact that walleyes will often hit the jig as it slips out of a snag, as long as the lure doesn't pick up any of the vegetation.

In the heavier vegetation, Courts uses the same jigs but tips them with a plastic trailer. His two favorite trailers are the 3-inch Berkley Gulp Fry and the 4-inch Gulp Sinking Minnow.

"This presentation requires you to go into your bass fishing mode," said Courts, "where you flip the jig into pockets in the vegetation, let it sink to the bottom, hop and pop the jig a few times, and then reel in and move to the next pocket. Walleyes love to sit in the shade of a thick cabbage bed, and they don't hesitate to smack a jig when it drops right in front of them. There is a lot of opportunity for this style of fishing all summer long on Mille Lacs."

LAKE WACONIA
When I fished walleyes with Courts on Waconia we spent the first two hours motoring around watching the sonar until he discovered a school of fish in 25 feet of water. Even after those fish showed up on the depthfinder he plotted a path on his GPS around the outside of the school before we dropped the bait.