The game plan for these early-season walleyes was to drift over the flat and cast a 1/8-ounce jig with a stand-up head tipped with a fathead minnow. If the wind began to pick up, it might be necessary to switch to a live-bait rig.

With walleyes spreading out on a large section of the bottom, it’s imperative to cover plenty of water either by trolling or drifting. When trolling, drag a live-bait rig 50 to 70 feet away from the boat. In shallow water, a boat can spook fish, so keeping the bait some distance from the watercraft may ensure the minnow attracts some fish.

When drifting and casting, Roach makes long casts and lets the jig settle to the bottom. He retrieves by dragging the jig a couple of feet, popping the rod tip a few times to hop the jig before letting it rest, and then starting the process again.

Typically, anglers mark and hold a spot after they catch a fish. In most cases, that’s exactly what they should do, but in the early season, with the fish spread out, staying in one spot may not result in walleyes.

Fishing a particular depth may also hinder success, since early-season walleyes are in a transition period and may be in water from a foot deep to the bottom of the deepest hole in the lake. Most of the active fish are in the mid-depths, so it’s a good bet that slowly moving the boat over a flat with depths varying from 5 to 15 feet will get the bait past plenty of walleyes.

Another good approach for early-season walleyes is trolling shallow-diving crankbaits at night. This technique is so effective that on some lakes night trolling is restricted until the walleyes have made their transition into deeper water.

Night trolling is simple. Slowly pull a long, narrow-bodied, shallow-diving lure about 100 to 125 feet directly behind the boat using an S-trolling maneuver to strain multiple depths.

The first spot Roach worked was as productive as he thought it would be. About every fourth cast, a 12- to 18-inch walleye would pick up the jig. After a few drifts, Roach decided to find some bigger walleyes.

Switching over to a Roach Rig, a live-bait rig with an adjustable snell that he designed for Northland Tackle, Roach impaled a 4-inch shiner onto a No. 2 hook and sent it to the bottom.

Roach had moved to the base of a steep dropoff on the edge of a newly emerging weedline. He saw some signs of forage on his sonar in 22 feet of water and thought some bigger walleyes might be lying in the trough that would appreciate a squirming shiner.

That’s one of Roach’s tricks. He always uses lively bait. Whether it’s a leech, night crawler or minnow, if the bait is not wiggling, squirming or swimming hard, it will be retired for fresher meat.

Roach got two bites in two passes, but each time he came up empty. The walleyes were biting soft, so he added a stinger hook -- a small treble hook attached to the rig and the tail end of the bait. If a walleye is biting short, the stinger will hook it.

It worked.

The next time, Roach set the hook and caught a nice 26-inch walleye. It was the only big fish he caught in that spot and although he spent the next couple of hours trying to target bigger fish, it was the last bite he got.