Best time to catch walleye?

I know there is two periods throughout the day that pickerel bit in the morning and late afternoon.

I know this might be a stupid question but I have read numerous threads on this forum that said the best pickerel bite was any where from 3-5 pm which seemed to be the pm bite or right at dusk. But after the time change it doesnt get dark till 7-730. So my question is does the pickerel bite happen just before dusk so that would mean around the 6-7 pm time frame or is it always mid to late afternoon?

I know the fish don't know the time I am just using these times as a guide.

I hope that isn't too confusing...

It depends on where you are fishing. Each lake is different. If a lake is heavily pressured during the day the big fish can change feeding habits to night time only. The biggest walleye ive seen caught were at 12am - 2am in the morning. Over the 2 hours from the same hole multiple big fish were caugh the biggest being 10lbs.This probably doesnt help, it probably just confuses the issue more LOL

Walleye are primarily nocternal feeders, if it does not get dark until 7-7:30 I would go out then, I fish walleye alot at night with a head lamp on, they come up into the shallows at night to feed on shiners and there eye's glow when I shine a light on the shore line so I know were to cast. I catch Walleye in 1-3FOW at night down here on LSC.

Thanks for your help guys I'm just trying to figure out when I should be planing on going out on the ice for some late ice walleye here in the far north.

Oh if its ice fishing then id be out from 4pm till 9ish.

This is a tougher question to answer than I orignally thought.

So many factors to consider.water body being fished would be number 1.

I grew up with the belief that walleye were evening and night feeders only and that may be the case in many waters, but for last 20 years I only day fish for them in open water.

certain lakes.....Erie being one of them many others have an incredible daytime bite for eyes..

Sometimes the hottest days of July right at noon produce fish after fish with ease.

Most northern lakes are kind of the same way I believe although it seems that trophy fish bite more readily after dark.

think of all the fishing shows where the hosts are filming daytime walleye catches.

So, some will say night and morning only, but maybe they haven't tried during the daytime.

I think it's both.

Longshank would you say the same for late ice walleye as well? Ive fished this lake alot this winter only catching walleye at early ice and i havent been able to get any mid winter or even these past few weeks.

Im trying to get a couple more eyes before ice out.

I have little experience with last ice walleye so cannot offer any real answers for you.

Ok thanks guys for your help guys. I will keep you guys updated on how I do!

Last season on the french river in late may for walleye opener we caught a lot of walleye at 50-60FOW daytime but all were 1-2 lbers perfect eats! the bigger guys showed up to feed at night. I believe what longshank is saying is the case for most bodies of water in northern Ontario, but all are different as stated.

Have fished Lake Nipissing for the past 25 years and have caught my biggest during the day and evening at dusk. Also helps if you know where a few reefs are.

There's no set answer. We did the bungalow thing 3 years in a row. I had grown up fishing the lake but never pulled an 'eye through ice on it. I asked around about the "night bite" and the general concensus seemed to be there wasn't much of one one in winter. The first 2 years we left lines down overnight and never lost a minnow. The last one we slayed'em after dark... they would hit late afternoon until dusk, shut down for a few hours and start again at 9. The way the operator we used that year talked gave me the impression that this was out of the norm for the lake but it changed that winter and not just for us. Reason? Who knows...

My experience fishing Nip during open water and through ice on other lakes was always that there was a good evening bite, but they would shut down at dark. You could be on them like ten but they would always shut off like someone flicked a switch, despite walleye being known as nighttime feeders. I experienced this every time out for many years before reading that the reason was that their eyes needed about 40 mins to an hour to "adjust" to total darkness before they would resume feeding. Then on a trip this year in March on a night before a front moved in, the evening bite stared as it always does.. around 4:30, but dusk came and went and the bite never stopped. Reason... who knows lol The bite was hot when normally that "switch" would take place. Aside from one 6lb'er that I caught on a full moon in August from a rock that had never produced a walleye before, about 15mins later than when this shut down takes place.. I had never experienced this.

My dad always proclaimed that Nip had a "noon" bite early in the season that would start late morning and end around 12:30-1. He landed many hogs fishing 4-8 feet of water during this "noon" bite on still, sunny days. My experience with the way I fish is that they bite in the morning, and 10:30-11 is when the bite more or less finally shuts off for the day (usually until around 6). Go figure.

It varies acoording to water clarity as well. I fish a lake up near Gogama that has water so stained that the perch barely show bars., and the walleye bite in shallow water though all hours of the day.