Fishing for walleye at night does not have to be complicated at all. The most productive and hassle-free method is to find an easily accessible sandy area and fish from shore. No boat required, no hassles and tons of walleye. If you find an area that walleye frequent at night, you can find them there every night, every day of the week, all season long. The key doesn’t go until it’s completely dark outside. Don’t even leave your house until it turns off. There is no need. Walleye doesn’t really start promoting itself until total obscurity. And they will go ballistic once the sun is completely gone.
Obviously, using live bait at night is productive. But, it is still a live bait, and it can be quite a hassle to set up the bait at night and examine it to see if it is still alive, and if the hook is set correctly, etc., etc. The best lure, for the most trouble-free night fishing experience, is an approximately 3-inch curlytail larva on a 1/4 oz jig head. It doesn’t even have to be scented. This lure will not hook as often as live bait and is maintenance free. The most important aspect of fishing for a plastic larva at night is the method you use. You don’t want to screw up the food. You want to swim the food. Swimming a larva just means you reel it in like a lure – no jigging to do. This method is much, much more effective than jigging, because you cover more water and introduce the jig to the walleye so they can attack from below and move their mouths up and over the bait, hooking when they light the bait. If you do, they spit out the bait throughout the day, even if they decide to inhale it. Swimming the bait makes the fish act fast, and at night they are much more aggressive, so the connections go off.