For scores of Youngstown-Warren-area anglers, spring officially arrived the moment they grasp the back of a fat prespawn walleye and remove their jig from the fish’s mouth.

Walleye fishing is as sure a sign as any that the promise of spring is real. Like daffodils, dandelions and spring peepers in the swamps, walleyes are the harbingers of another bountiful season.

For generations of northeastern Ohioans, walleyes have fueled their fishing fires. They are among the earliest of the game species to get active after ice-out. They are native to Lake Erie and the rivers that are dammed to create Milton, Pymatuning, Mosquito, Berlin West Branch and Shenango lakes.

Best of all, they are not especially difficult to catch.

Some of my best spring fishing experiences have involved walleyes. For as long as I have been an Ohio fishing license holder, I looked forward to March trips to the banks of Mosquito, Berlin, Pymatuning and the Ohio and Mahoning Rivers.

I am by no means an accomplished walleye angler. I’ve caught a lot of them, but only because I put a lot of time into trying. As with most fishing experiences, I learned a lot from anglers who made walleyes their fishing passion.

They taught me well. I learned that with a pocketful of jigs and twister tails, a light-action spinning rod and a reel spooled with 8-pound-test line, I was well-equipped for just about any of the several springtime walleye tactics used by anglers throughout our region.

Whether wading the Mahoning below Berlin and Milton or the shallow bays with incoming creeks at Mosquito Lake, the jig and twister remains a surefire set-up for walleyes looking for suitable spawning waters.

The very same jigs and twisters also worked great for anglers casting off popular locations such as Mosquito’s dam and Ohio 88 causeway, and the long causeways at Berlin and Pymatuning.

Mid-March was my annual ice-breaker. I counted on the weeks immediately after the thaw to put me in range of cold-water walleyes, which were always welcome on the dinner table back home.

I timed my visits to coincide with the waning hours of daylight to take advantage of the walleyes’ predictable move to shallow water as darkness settled in. Long casts were rarely necessary, as the fish typically were in water as shallow as 1 or 2 feet. Bites sometimes happened near my feet as I lifted my jigs from the water.

Colors rarely mattered. While I recall that bright pink, orange and chartreuse were good colors, so were the plain unpainted one-eighth-ounce lead heads.

I loved the Berlin and Mosquito dams’ tailraces because the walleyes’ locations were predictable. If you could identify a seam in the current, you could expect any fish in the area to be set up there.

Also predictable were the particular locations of fish along the causeways. If you caught a few at a spot on Monday, it was likely you might find a few more on Wednesday.

For me, a good outing resulted in a couple or three 16-inchers for the skillet. But even if my score was zero, the time on the water was always worth the effort after the long and dark Ohio winter.

Jack Wollitz has been catching walleyes in the lakes of Trumbull, Mahoning and Mercer counties for many decades. Contact him at jackbbaass@gmail.com.