STRUCTURE-FREE
Most of the time when fishing structure-free zones, that's precisely what you have to do to locate walleyes -- fish for them. While doing so, pay attention with lures and electronics to the slightest change in depth. A six-inch change extending for a quarter mile can be a break -- and essentially the structure -- on an otherwise nondescript stretch of bottom. You might feel such a change with your sinker or spot it on electronics.

Simply catching fish helps decipher the lay of the underwater land. Say you're fishing jigs or rigs and you nail a walleye. Pitch out a floating marker or punch in an icon on your GPS. Return to the spot, fish it, and circle it, paying attention to the depth and bottom content. Did the depth dip a tad or did the bottom change from soft to hard? If so, you're on the right track.

Spinners tipped with livebait are efficient search tools as well. "I'm not a patient angler," Leer says. "I tend to move fast to hunt for fish. One reason I like spinners is that you don't necessarily even have to catch a fish to find out if they're down there; if the skin on your minnow is pulled back, that usually indicates a walleye. Turn around and go back through the spot again.

"To me, spinners demand a reaction. We're forcing fish to make a decision. All we're looking for is one fish to say, "Stop. Fish here."

For his part, Naig is partial to crankbaits on dishpan-shaped lakes. Here the fish could be high off bottom, out of the range of electronics, or scattered almost anywhere. Most of the time, though, Naig says the walleyes are in the upper half of the water column. With crankbaits positioned behind planer boards, Naig trolls across the open basin, kicking his speed up as high as 3 mph. To keep track of where you've been and to continue covering fresh water, watch the plotter screen on a GPS unit.

Which crankbaits you choose are a function of lake style, water temperature, and forage. During summer in warm prairie lakes that typically are devoid of structure and full of small panfish and bullheads as food sources, Naig likes short, fat cranks such as the Berkley Frenzy. Shad-shaped baits are excellent choices as well. Look to perch, chrome, and bluegill colors -- better yet if the bait has a splash of orange.

One way or another, you must go get 'em. Whether it's searching out precise spots on structure-fests, or fishing to find walleyes in a structure-free zone, deploy the respective plans to trigger a response. Fish are, after all, where you find 'em.

Lakes with an abundance of classic structure offer fish numerous holding places: points and turns in the contour, humps, changes in bottom composition, perhaps weedbeds, and other options. In the midst of plenty, seek out distinctive spots that concentrate fish. Such areas are often present in the form of depth changes that are clearly visible on electronics.

Lakes with an absence of classic structure offer subtler general holding areas where fish may spread loosely across slow-tapering depth changes, variations in bottom content visible on electronics, or other subtle fish attractors. In some cases, the presence of fish life detected on electronics betrays walleye location despite an apparent lack of anything to attract and hold fish.