Think of it this way: When water penetrates the trees, so do the walleyes, and if you want to catch them, you must go in after them. Admittedly, if the water is truly raging and penetrating hundreds of feet back into the forest, well, efforts may be better spent elsewhere -- like back home getting a jump on spring cleaning and yardwork -- because you can't reach the fish to catch them. But if the water is only a bit back into the weeds and wood, you're still in the game.

Solving this dilemma becomes the province of fishing tight to current breaks along shore, and penetrating the cover with fairly weedless presentations, like weedguard jigs tipped with soft plastics or minnows, crankbaits or, for the adventurous, even a small bass-style spinnerbait. The key is to focus on getting your offerings inside the flooded edge, where fish are able to hold or roam, rather than being swept downstream. Current along the main river channel may be so swift that you can't achieve much within a mile or so of the dam. If so, move downstream even farther, or into adjacent side channels that moderate the water's fury. In doing so, always be on the lookout for places where fish can get up into cover and current breaks of any form, out of the maelstrom.

Flippin' or pitchin' small weedless jigs is perhaps the easiest attempt you can make to test for the presence of walleyes. Pitch that baby back in there amidst the flooded brush and weeds and logs, and creep, crawl, fall, pause, slither it back toward the boat. Probe in and around a significant flooded tree, frontside and back. Hit that small pocket of calm water at the back end of an island, or at the intersection of a tributary stream or side channel with the main river. Anything and everything is fair game. Adopt the mentality of a bass angler covering shallow water, rather than a walleye angler probing deep basins. After all, when walleyes act like bass, you have to react like a bass angler in order to contact and catch them.

Hey, no one says fishing high water is gonna be easy; in fact, it can be downright tough, even hopeless at times. But early high water, when the fish first begin penetrating the cover, is still fishable, and can sometimes surprise you with good results. Your biggest advantage over other river anglers is that you recognize the conditions, begin shifting your efforts downstream and into areas with less current -- aggressively probing where fish can be, not where they used to be. Switching away from traditional river walleye tactics in favor of bassy-looking areas with just a few feet of water, adjacent to the flow. To neither the first, nor the second, but perhaps the third or fourth wing dam in a series, where the current might be sufficiently moderated to hold a few 'eyes. To where you're reduced to fishing areas of reduced current, because that's where the fish are forced during high water.