Jeff Knapp displays a Pymatuning walleye caught and released during a recent trip. Jeff Knapp/Special to the Eagle

Late fall and Pymatuning walleyes. It’s become a tradition for me; and based on the number of boats I witnessed there last week, the same is true for others.

It’s been more than 30 years since my first late fall experience on the big lake.

At that time the sage advice was to “pump a blade bait.” Blade baits, of which I’ve written many times, are compact, tightly vibrating metal lures the likes of the Silver Buddy, Heddon Sonar, and Reef Runner Cicada. “Pumping” referred to the method of vertically jigging the lure.

Not a lot has changed during the past three decades. During a full day and two partial days on the lake, before the mild weather tanked and was replaced by wind, rain and snow, I managed numerous quality sized walleyes up to 22 inches. And while I put a variety of lures to the test — spoons, glide jigs and lipless crankbaits — all of my fish came on a half-ounce silver blade bait.

And while not a lot has changed over the years, some things have.

All of my walleyes, as well as yellow perch, white bass and crappies, came on blade baits, but none by way of vertically jigging the lure. Rather, casting and bumping the lure along the bottom was what triggered them.

Back in the day, it was accepted that walleyes focused on schools of gizzard shad during the late fall. Shad are temperature sensitive fish. Fall witnessed a movement of shad to the deeper, southern basin of the lake which is slower to cool. Walleyes would follow. One clue to locating walleyes was to target areas where seagulls and terns were feeding, an indicator suspended shad were nearby.

Park your boat near the feeding gulls, vertically jig a blade bait, and chances are you would put your lure in front of active walleyes.

That strategy might still work. But gizzard shad are not the only food source in the lake.

Alewives are now present and have been for a long time. Spottail shiners are part of the mix, and bite size yellow perch are too. White perch have found their way into the lake, an unwelcome component and perhaps another food source. All of which complicates the predator/prey relationship.

It’s not as simple as finding the food and then finding the walleyes with the food sources being so varied and widely distributed.

Over the past few years my primary method of targeting Pymatuning walleyes from mid-spring to mid-fall (October-ish) has been to zero in on isolated structures with glide jigs such as the Acme Hyper Rattle and Rapala Jigging Rap. It’s an aggressive snap jigging presentation that quickly triggers a reaction from any nearby walleyes.

In other words, if they are going to hit the lure they do so on the first few casts. Hit a spot and then move on.

Interestingly, I found the same basic strategy worked last week. But rather than aggressively fishing glide jigs, which are enthusiastically snapped off the bottom, the fish responded to a blade bait gently jigged along the bottom.

The same hard bottom humps and points that have produced the past few years during the warmer months did so in the 40-some degree water, only with this change in presentation.

Another adjustment was to give a spot much more time to produce. In the cooler water I suspected it might take many more casts to elicit a strike. Also it seemed likely more fish might move on to a spot while I was fishing it, particularly during the evening twilight.

Though I tried areas both deeper and shallower, all of the walleyes I caught were in 14-16 feet of water.

Currently, Pymatuning Lake is at least 2 feet low, making many of the ramps questionable. The best access area is the Jamestown ramp, where there’s plenty of water and also docks.

Jeff Knapp is an outdoors columnist for the Butler Eagle