As good as river walleye fishing can be during the late fall and winter, there’s no denying a degree of unpleasantness the seasonal conditions bring with it.

Dipping into an icy cold minnow bucket is one example of this. But guess what? At times you don’t need to dip to catch wintertime river walleyes.

Armed with a well-chosen selection of both soft-bodied baits, as well as some basics on fish location and attitude, you’ll find it’s both simple and effective to take these fish without the hassle of dealing with minnows.

In general, late fall walleyes are inactive. The fact that an angler can sometimes catch 50 or more of them a day has much to do with how concentrated the fish are. But inactive as they may be, there will still be times when the fish actively seek food, when they move shallow and are willing to hold in a degree of current. The baits you carry with you should reflect these attitude swings.

The leadhead jig/minnow combination is the classic cold weather river walleye offering. Eliminate the minnow part of the combo, and replace it with one of several soft-body profiles and you will still catch plenty of fish, more on some days, I suspect, as you can fish a bit more aggressively, and don’t have to take the time to re-bait.

Out of the myriad of body shapes available, four are particularly well suited for river walleyes: curly tail grubs, tubes, ringworms and minnow-imitations. The addition of salt, flavor and scent enhancement to these offerings has increased their effectiveness on tight-lipped walleyes. Go with a four-inch ringworm, and three to four-inch versions of the other baits.

In addition to soft-bodied jigs, the timeless bucktail jig is also effective. The breathing action of a hair jig as water flushes through it provides a unique look, one that walleyes prefer some days.

Generally, walleyes remain inactive and relatively lethargic throughout the day, moving shallow to feed during the evening twilight. During cloudy days, especially during a warming trend, the shallow bite can happen throughout the day. This aside, some of the time you’ll be fishing for walleyes that are holding in deeper water, off of the current edges. They can be caught, but you’ll have to make it easy for them.

Just like the minnow-tipped classic, soft-bodied jigs and hair jigs can be used to vertically jig over inactive walleyes as the boat slowly slides along a slackwater pool. The bites you get from these less-than-aggressive walleyes will be ones of opportunity as the bait hovers in their face.

In this situation, a profile that doesn’t provide much action, the tube body or minnow profile (like a Berkley Power Minnow), can be more effective than a curly tail or ringworm. You can also pinch off the end of the ringworm so it’s more subtle. I use standard insert-style leadheads with tube bodies, and round heads when vertically jigging ringworms or fake minnows.

The real fun in going baitless for these fish is when they move shallow, which often happens the final hour or two of the day, or when clouds cover the sun. They are more aggressive, so you should be, too.

Expect fish to move to the edges of the same deep pool that held them when they were less active. If there’s a pronounced sandbar at the head of the pool, they’ll move up on it. If a large, slow moving creek enters the pool, they’ll scatter over the soft-bottomed delta often found at the stream mouth to feed on minnows.

Where the pool gives way to a shallow flat downstream, they’ll often spread out over the flat, providing the current is fairly mild.

A shallow (three to six foot) flat found below a major river hole is an especially fine spot to fish for active walleyes. You can work the edge of the hole, the lip where it rises up to the flat, by pitching jigs shallow and working them down the drop.

Jeff Knapp is an outdoors columnist for the Butler Eagle