— submitted photo Rivers big and small are the place to be now for walleye and sauger action. Ken Poole took this sauger from the Mississippi River near Red Wing Minnesota.

The autumn season offers many outdoor activities. Some folks like to go hunting and others know that ice-fishing is not far away. But there are some, probably more than you would think, that look forward to this time of year for open water fishing. They know that right now, in rivers throughout the Midwest, there are lots of opportunities to catch walleyes. In fact, an angler friend of mine who catches lots and lots of walleyes every year regularly proclaims that from late October and well into December is when he catches many if not most of his year’s catch of walleyes. He fishes large rivers from his boat and casts on smaller rivers while wearing waders. I’ve done the same for the past four decades and have some fond memories of catching walleyes in rivers in the fall. Here’s how you can get in on this action.

Number One Tip: Be prepared for any weather. It can be twenty degrees or seventy degrees. If you’re cold, you’re not going to enjoy being out there no matter how good the fish are biting. Start out dressed for cold conditions: You can always take clothes off, but you can’t put on clothes that you don’t have with. Most days on the river this time of year will be very pleasant, made even more pleasant by walleyes and sauger that want to get caught.

Different areas will produce walleye and sauger. Sand flats, wingdams, mid-river holes, current breaks, they’ll all hold fish. You need to keep moving around until you find the areas that have the most biters.

Jigs will be fish-catchers. Let the water depth and current determine jig weight. You’ll usually need at least a quarter ounce jig and on larger rivers it’s not unusual and often is common to go to a half ounce and sometimes even heavier. When you’re hovering over the fish, you’ll want to use a jig that will allow you to fish as vertically as possible. On smaller rivers when casting to shallower water, an eighth ounce jig is probably the best size much of the time.

Three to four inch fathead minnows are still the traditionally preferred tip for your jig, but every fall we see more anglers using and catching walleyes and sauger on jigs tipped with plastic. When they want plastic, and they want plastic much of the time, it’s hard to beat Rage Swimmers in the small to medium sizes. The brighter colors are usually better, but try a variety of colors until the fish show you what they want.

A presentation that’s new to a lot of anglers is a bait that was designed for ice-fishing but is outstanding when vertically jigging in open water. It’s called a Tikka Mino. This bait looks like a minnow. It has a single hook on each end and a treble belly hook. It’s designed to be fished aggressively, but as with color, experiment. Sometimes a slower lift/fall will be more productive that a ripping lift/fall. If there are two anglers or more in the boat, Tikka Mino’s and traditional jigs can be fished at the same time, so anglers can figure out which the walleyes and sauger prefer on that day.

When the fish are in the deeper areas, it works well to hover directly over them and hold the bait right in their face. These fish don’t want to chase a bait, but if it’s wiggling on their nose, they’re going to eat it.

There’s probably a river within an easy drive of where you live that has walleyes in it. Now and for the next few weeks would be a great time to go there and see if you can catch a few.