Why do cisco and smelt lakes grow the biggest walleye?
Because they solve the big fish's energy problem. A giant walleye needs large, fatty, abundant prey, and pelagic coolwater forage — cisco (tullibee) and rainbow smelt — delivers exactly that: oily flesh, big body sizes, and dense schools holding in the cool, oxygenated band where a big walleye already wants to live in summer. On these lakes the largest fish go substantially pelagic, shadowing bait over open basins instead of grinding structure, and they get two bonus feeding festivals: smelt runs in spring and the November cisco spawn, when the lake's biggest predators follow spawning cisco onto shallow rock within casting reach. If your goal is a true trophy, forage base belongs above lake fame on your checklist — a modest lake with cisco routinely beats a famous one without.
The full story
This answer is one piece of a longer lesson — setups, diagrams and the reasoning behind it.
More questions about Diet
- What do walleye mainly eat?
- Why does the fishing die during the mayfly hatch?
- What size bait should I use for walleye?
- Does the walleye's menu change between day and night?
- Do walleye eat crayfish and gobies?
- Do walleye eat bluegills, frogs — or their own young?
- Will walleye eat a dead minnow — and do they eat fish eggs or scuds?
Same topic, other species
- What size minnows and shad do crappie prefer? — Crappie
- How big a bait can a largemouth take? — Largemouth Bass
- How big a prey fish can a muskie swallow? — Muskellunge (Muskie)
- Do perch really eat each other? — Yellow Perch
- How big a prey can a pike really swallow? — Northern Pike
- What is the round goby story in the Great Lakes? — Smallmouth Bass
- What does a stream rainbow actually eat day to day? — Trout (Rainbow · Brook · Lake)