Photo courtesy Camp Quetico
The greedy gobbler who may find its way on to an angler’s line in pursuit of a juicy minnow, is usually over the age of three years.
The walleye’s ability to consume vast quantities of food is a life long practice, as the fish needs to maintain its size and continues growing throughout its lifetime.
The Walleye eats actively throughout the summer months. In clear waters, they feed from top to bottom only between sunset and sunrise because their eyes are very sensitive to light and they shy away from daylight.
However, Walleye are more often found in darker, murkier waters where they actively feed along the lake bottom during the day. Their main competitors for food supply are yellow perch, sauger and smallmouth bass.
While the Walleye may be fearsome foe in the underwater world, it too has predators. The most dominant of these is the Northern Pike which devours Walleye, especially the young fry.
Photo courtesy Canoe Canada
A predator of the murky depths, the Walleye has extremely keen hearing capabilities, sharp vision, and a great sense of smell. All these attributes enable the walleye to detect its hapless prey, the minnow, up to 20 feet away. It can tell if the minnow is sick, crippled or healthy.
A member of the Perch family, its growth period is rapid as it forages voraciously for food in its early years. In younger stages they eat mostly insects and by adulthood, graduating to yellow perch and cyprinids, which comprise their favourite food.
As adults, they also eat mayflies and larval, crayfish, snails, frogs, and mudpuppies when minnows and small fish are scarce. Walleye even occasionally eat small mammals, but primarily they favour minnows
about 6 to 10 inches in length.
Water that is low in clarity, with suspended algae, silt, bog debris, and a temperature that is cool, is the ideal environment for finding and catching Walleye. They favour a somewhat ‘clean’ lake bottom consisting of a combination of rock, sand and gravel as opposed to a mucky or silt bottom.
This type of lake bottom attracts insects and invertebrates, which in turn attracts baitfish, a Walleye’s favourite food.
Where the bottom is covered with a layer of sediment, Walleye can usually be found along an exposed gravel bar or rock pile. Walleye are often found among Yellow Perch, Northern Pike, White Sucker, and Smallmouth Bass.
In Canada, Walleye are abundant throughout lakes in the Prairie provinces, Quebec, and Ontario, particularly the Boreal forest zone of Northwestern Ontario.
Although found throughout Canada in a variety of environments, Walleye are most prevalent in large, shallow lakes with cloudy waters, and large rivers or streams that provide sufficient protection from harsh light. Walleye are known to seek out shelter in shoals, logs, weed beds or snow and ice to shield them from the sun.
As their name indicates, Walleye have a special layer in the retina which makes their eyes extremely sensitive to light.
Also for this reason, Walleye rest close to the bottom in clear waters throughout the day, and feed from top to bottom at evening and through the night. In murkier waters, their preferred habitat, Walleye feed along the bottom throughout the day.