How does a walleye find my lure in total darkness?

Two systems hand off to each other. At range, the lateral line — a row of motion sensors along the flank — reads the pressure waves a swimming bait pushes through the water, telling the fish something is displacing water, how big, and roughly where, out to a few body lengths. Vision then closes the deal: even on a dark night there is almost always some sky glow, and the tapetum needs very little to resolve a silhouette overhead. The practical recipe for night walleye follows directly: baits with a definite thump or wobble to be found by, worked shallow enough or high enough to silhouette against the surface, moved slowly and on straight predictable paths so the fish's intercept actually connects.

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