"You're not going to find a lot of different-sized walleyes getting caught in Prior," Matt Pretzel said. "It seems like they are all big." Photo by Tim Lesmeister

When asked to define a classic walleye lake, professional angler Matt Pretzel stated it's where you find large numbers of walleyes on textbook-perfect walleye structure.

"Some of the southern potholes are great walleye lakes, but they don't fit the criteria for classic status because they have limited structure," Pretzel said. "Most of the lakes in central Minnesota actually fall more into the realm of bass/panfish lakes than classic walleye lakes."

Gary Roach, a well-known touring walleye pro, added that the classic walleye lakes in Minnesota have a reputation for providing productive walleye fishing while utilizing many of the techniques that have proved their effectiveness.

"On a classic walleye lake, you can live-bait rig the dropoffs, cast jigs to the points, troll crankbaits over the rocks and drag spinner rigs around the reefs and sunken islands -- all on the same lake, of course," Roach said.

Fisheries biologist and a top touring pro Scott Fairbairn defined a classic walleye lake as one where walleyes can use five categories of structure.

"The root of all classic walleye structure that walleyes relate to are points, breaklines, flats, open water and current," Fairbairn said, although he does admit that his definition of structure is unique in that he includes open water and current. "Current and open water take a little stretch, I admit that, but each can create an area that fish migrate to. Open water is appealing to baitfish, and this adds to the structure of open water to attract walleyes. Current creates seams that act as breaklines, and walleyes will relate to this just like they will a dropoff or point.

"All walleye structure is a combination of one of those things," Fairbairn continued. "For example, if you ask my Grandpa Fairbairn what is classic walleye structure, he'll say an offshore rock hump. When I think about that, an offshore rock hump is nothing more than a midlake flat with a breakline around it. If it's a good offshore hump, it has a point somewhere on it that creates that spot on the spot. It may sit in the river and then there will be current seams that get created around it. Fish using that rockpile at some point may venture out to the open water, but they are still relating to the physical structure. Drop it all into one lake and you have a classic walleye lake."

Surprisingly, there are not as many classic walleye lakes in Minnesota as one would expect. The southern potholes are teeming with walleyes, but they are shallow, and the bottoms of many of these lakes are relatively featureless. The central band of lakes tends to provide better habitat for bass and panfish. Lakes up north are typically considered the prime candidates for classic status, but many are too small to support all the necessary deep water and diverse structure to fall into the classic category.

But still, there are many lakes in Minnesota, which means there are enough classic walleye lakes for anglers who desire this experience to have it close at hand. Try hitting a homer this summer on one of these nine lakes.