Why are walleye sometimes suspended out over the open basin?
Because the food is. In lakes with pelagic forage — cisco, smelt, young perch pushed offshore, shad in reservoirs — the bait holds at its preferred temperature-oxygen layer over open water, and walleye leave the bank-fisherman's structure entirely to shadow it, hanging at 6–15 m (20–49 ft) over water twice that deep. This is not rare or aberrant: on cisco lakes and the Great Lakes, the biggest walleye in the system live substantially pelagic lives, which is why serious trophy programs there are trolling programs. The angling shift is mental as much as technical — trust the sonar over the shoreline, fish the depth the bait marks are at, and treat "no structure" as no obstacle.
The full story
This answer is one piece of a longer lesson — setups, diagrams and the reasoning behind it.
More questions about Breathing & oxygen
Same topic, other species
- Where do crappie go in late winter under the ice? — Crappie
- How does the thermocline affect where largemouth hold in summer? — Largemouth Bass
- What is the late-summer oxygen squeeze? — Muskellunge (Muskie)
- What is winter-kill, and why does it shape so many perch lakes? — Yellow Perch
- What is winterkill, and why does it matter for pike lakes? — Northern Pike
- Does a summer smallmouth have to move deep? — Smallmouth Bass
- What is a "summer squeeze" or summer kill for trout? — Trout (Rainbow · Brook · Lake)