I finally caught my first walleye on a fly last week, pretty much by accident. 
I’m heading to Canada soon, and have been planning to target walleyes with fly gear while they are still roaming the shallows. By mid-summer (first week of August), they’ll be mostly in 20’ depths, but for now they should be in 5’-10’ depths. I hope.
I have no idea how well this is going to work, but I’m really looking forward to giving it a serious “go”.
The water color at this lake is sort of “root beer” colored…clear, but tannin-stained. We’ve noticed browns, oranges, blacks, and olive-colored plastics do much better than yellows and chartreuse’s. White is the only “brighter color” that seems to work ok at times.
Based on spinning gear lures we’ve caught walleyes on at this particular lake in the past, and what I know certain forage items to be, I’ve been tying up all sorts of patterns I THINK the walleyes might hit.
Here’s just a few of them…I’ve got a large box with a double-sided leaf pretty well crammed full of “options”. Many of these may not have names…or I just don’t know what they are.
Ward Bean’s “Jointed Minnow” - Olive:

We’ve done well with plastic “Ringworms” on jigheads in the past, so hopefully they will like this (basically a large Woolly Bugger with barbell eyes):

Or this…a bunny strip leech in sort a dark maroon color:

Or this:

Maybe this:

Orange-dyed Squirrel Tail Clouser:

Barbel-eye Boa Yarn Leeches with marabou tails:

Size 6 Nymphs"

What I’m calling a “Walleye Streamer”…the wing is black-over-orange grizzly feathers:

…continued…
That same streamer, as well as some others:

I’m open to other suggestions…
The good ol’ Clouser minnow has always been effective for me. I’ve also done well on variations on the epoxy minnow theme. Leech patterns should do real well up there as well, leeches being a go-to for the bait fisherman in those areas. Looks like a good assortment you’ve got there. Be sure to let us know how they do. Oh yeah, I’ve also found muted, natural colors to do better on walleye than some of the brighter colors (white is a natural color any tie baitfish are part of the equation).
Right on! The available forage for walleyes, as far as I’ve been able to gather over the years (we’ve been going to this same lake every-other-year since 2001), includes yellow perch, whitefish, cisco, mayfly nymphs (and who knows what other nymphs), and leeches. When we’ve caught leeches swimming by the boat and put them on a jighead to try for bait, I don’t recall EVER actually catching a fish on the leech. But plastics that look like leeches do very well. How strange is that?
One time I caught a 9" whitefish (or cisco?)…and kept it for awhile, planning to take it back to our camp to be positively identified since I wasn’t entirely sure what it was. Anyway it was whitish-colored. It soon died, a storm blew in and I decided to use it for bait. I attached a couple big hooks to a steel leader, threaded the hooks through strategic locations of the side of this fish (hook-points exposed), and lobbed it overboard to hang directly under the boat. Despite the size of the bait, I caught several nice pike and walleyes on it quickly, but the action died as the storm front passed and the lake flattened out.
We’ve gotten there right after a big mayfly hatch, where you could see all the empty nymph “husks” floating on the surface. People reported an inability to catch walleyes on the usual lures during this time. We may hit the hatch this trip, so I’m taking some nymphs to try. I think I’ll skip the dry fly patterns, though.
While on occasion we have done well with 4" Swimbait-type plastics, many times the walleyes at this lake seem more willing to attack a rather small, shredded piece of plastic that has already caught so many fish you can’t even tell what the plastic was supposed to be, and it can barely stay on the hook!
So…I’m trying to cover all these situations. I’m taking WFF line, but also some sinking line sections and leaders just in case. I’m also taking some steel leaders I made, and some pike leaders, because there will be some pike in the area, and their favorite food seems to be WALLEYE!
Dave,
Try the crystal muddler. I’ve caught quite a few on this pattern. The recipe is in the fotw archives.
TT.
That looks good, TT…I will try to get a couple of those tied up before I leave as well!