Cold-front walleyes can be tough customers, but talking them into eating may be easier than you think.
June 17, 2025
By Jim Edlund
Walleyes can be fickle creatures who willingness to bite can be subject to a lot of factors. That means water and air temperature, wind movement, rain, barometric pressure, and moon phase. In the Midwest, this spring has we’ve encountered significant changes in temperature, from cold to hot, and hot back to cold.
What’s the best way to crack cold-front walleyes?
“When the fronts comes in, I’m guiding. I’ve got people relying on me, and some of them have waited a whole year to jump in the boat and catch walleyes. And they have a fish fry in mind, which puts even more pressure on me than I’d have going into a tournament,” says legendary Minnesota guide Brian “Bro” Brosdahl.
Smaller Minnows, Lighter Jigs Bro recently fished a gin-clear lake and using spot-tail shiners on jigs, but the bites didn’t feel any different than running into weeds.
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The key to catching finicky walleyes after a front passes through is downsizing your presentation. “The bites were really light, and the walleyes would spit out the shiner. That’s why I keep three different size minnows in the boat. I had shiners, rainbows and some smaller fatheads.”
Besides choosing smaller minnows, he also recommends sizing down jigheads, often from a standard 1/4 to an 1/8 or 1/16th ounce, even in water as deep as 12 or 13 feet.
“It took a while for the jigs to sink,” he said. “But once on bottom we slowed our jigging cadence way down to a drag followed by a long pause, another drag and a slight hop. That got us bit.”
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Setting the hook was also handled with finesse.
“When they bit, you’d see the fish on your rod tip, let the fish pump the rod two or three times, and then simply reel up to them slowly until the rod tip started to bend and then set the hook.”
Still, he said a lot of the walleyes were coming off in the net, not really sucking in the bait. His solution? Double-hooking the minnows through the mouth, out the gill plate opening and back into the side.
Summertime cold fronts are an often occurrence in the North Country, fishing may slow but by no means does that mean you should stay home. Bro also pays attention to what color jigheads get bit during cold fronts, switching clients to what’s working, which could be black, white, or blue—the latter which he’s a big fan of in clear water.
Slip Bobber or Drop Shot When he struggles with jigging, he turns to a small leech on a slip-bobber or drop-shot rig. “No matter the conditions, walleyes will always eat a small leech,” he said. “Sometimes, when you find them, you have to put the jig rod down and soak a bobber or put a dropshot right in front of their noses.”
He says walleye anglers get too excited about leech size, many only fishing jumbo or large bait.
“I like little leeches—they don’t come off the hook when you cast them like big, heavy leeches. The other thing, seems like eater to mid-sized fish actually prefer smaller leeches a lot of time. Save the jumbos for hunting trophies later in the season.”
Downsizing is also the key to rigging a dropshot for cold front conditions, with Bro sizing his hook down to a #8. If he’s fishing minnows on a dropshot he opts for a classic, Aberdeen-style worm hook to get the bait out a little farther. And in terms of the leader length from the weight to the hook, a foot to 18-inches is often plenty, he said, as you simply want to create a rig that will sit in front of the fish that you can move ever so gently to get that bait to shake and the walleye to eat.
“And I’m not scared to use a 1/4-ounce weight even if we’re in 8 to 10 feet because I’m not moving it quickly back to the boat; I want it to sit there and work it,” he said. “With the small shiner double hooked, the fish can’t see the hook. The deal is putting the rig in front of the fish and just shaking the shiner in front of them, which often creates strikes.”
He’ll also size down from shiners to fatheads that he hooks with smaller, sharp Gamakatsu Stiletto hooks that still allow you to double-hook a small minnow.
The right bait combination is critical to catching post-frontal walleyes, but finding them is a manageable task through the use Side Imaging and forward-facing sonar. Small Weather Changes Based on his cold front fishing experience, barometric changes of a couple of tenths can turn a bite from tough to better. He urges anglers to watch for this.
“A cold front will really only affect the fish for a short while. Even on the worse days the sun might pop out for a little bit and you’ll end up with your best bites of the day,” he said. “And it’s not always in the morning or evening. It can also be when the weather changes just a little bit like the wind picking up.”
Like most walleye anglers, Bro isn’t a fan of super low pressure. With a barometer around 29.57 he says he’ll struggle to mark fish, but an increase up to 29.64 might kick off the bite before plummeting again and shutting off the fish.
“You get little windows during a cold front, so pay attention because the barometer is the weight of the atmosphere on the fish and affects their willingness to feed.”
He also pays attention to the lunar table, with a couple days immediately preceding a full moon or following it bunching up walleyes more than other times.
Find Midge Flies Bro calls finding areas of a lake with emerging midge flies his “cold front secret weapon.”
“Midge flies will hatch even during a cold front,” he said. “Pay attention to what’s happening around the boat. If there are midges, chances are you can get walleyes to bite with finesse approaches.”
How do you key into these areas?
Look for warmer water areas with weed growth stubble left over from the previous year—especially areas facing the main basin—and chances are you’ll find insect hatches. Bro calls them “food shelves” that become active during the spring and early summer, areas that will attract eater walleyes and suckers to the food source.
Use Your Electronics When scouting areas to fish during a cold front it’s important to use your Side Imaging and learn to tell the difference between schools of suckers and walleyes.
Livebait is a staple when the bite gets tough. “Side Imaging sitting still, suckers will look like a bunch of worms with square heads on the screen—real dark blurs going back and forth. Walleye formations are more aerodynamic and come through like little squadrons of fighter jets. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is. You’re probably looking at an area with a lot of suckers. But key in on those pods of three, four, five fish and you’ve found the good stuff.”
For anglers using forward-facing sonar, he said suckers will hold just off bottom whereas walleyes might be 3 to 4 feet off bottom and in tight formation and appear “very pointy on the screen.”
