maumee river report 11 march 2025

Reality:  Its true that walleye tend to congregate in the same areas year after year, but they can be found in various locations along the river . However the river upstream of Jerome rd rapids is rarely fished. For example  Bendview Metropark is a wonderful area to spread out and avoid the crowd. 

How willing are spawning walleye to attack bait , atificial or live ,has long been a matter of speculation and argument. Most say not so much. Even if walleye were prone to grab a bite before spawn , as it is with many fish species, they’d have a tough time finding bait in the murky flow generated by spring runoff.  Hence, favorite lures for years had been highly visible white or yellow doll flies, prevalent all the way up through the 1980s. Plastic twister tails in fluorescent colors have been embraced as fish lunes since they came along.

But who can say for certain? Outside of a few research papers , what happens underwater in the Maumee tends to stay underwater in the Maumee.

Given all those fish and all those baits with sharp hooks bouncing around the bottom , many hookups will be purely accidental, that is, snags. Fish hooked on a fin, in the back, under the belly or through a gill cover may not be legally kept.

Besides making sure anglers stay within the daily limit, the watchers wearing badges will sometimes check for signs that a kept fish was hooked afoul. And as it should ,keeping foul-hooked walleye can cost fines and restitution. Let’s mention the watchers won’t let suspect anglers keep suspect fish. Dont be greedy.