"It doesn’t take long for the word to get out," Suitt said as he sat in his boat off Clinton Point. "Once the walleyes move up and people start catching them, there will be all kinds of boats out here.

"I counted 28 boats here off Clinton Point the other day. And this isn’t even the peak.

"There will be more once the walleyes really get going."

Suitt should know. He has fished for Kansas walleyes most of his life. And he knows as well as anybody the excitement that late spring can bring.

He and many others wait for the day when the big gamefish have recovered from the spawn and head to the mud flats with a big appetite. The walleyes often roam those flats in large numbers -- and fishermen gather in large numbers, too.

They know that May and June can produce some of the best walleye fishing of the year.

Suitt has proof hanging on his wall. One day four years ago, he caught two fish of a lifetime -- 10 1/2 - and 9 1/2 -pound walleyes -- at Clinton, a 7,000-acre reservoir about 45 miles west of the Kansas City area.

Days like that happen only once in a lifetime, Suitt will tell you. But that doesn’t keep him from dreaming big at this time of the year.

"I catch a lot of walleyes, but I fish almost every day," said Suitt, a retired law-enforcement officer who lives in Lawrence. "I try to keep up with these fish."

And not just at Clinton. Take a look at his recent travels. He was on Clinton one day, Melvern the next and Hillsdale the next. Still to come: Trips to his favorite walleye reservoir, Milford, and others such as Lovewell.

On a recent weekday, Suitt was at Clinton, sitting on the spot where he had caught a limit of five walleyes the previous day. And it didn’t take long for him to find that the fish hadn’t left.

As he let his boat drift out to 20 feet of water, his fish finder began to show marks. And Suitt and his friend, Gary Vestal, dropped their bright-colored jig heads tipped with night crawlers into the water.

Fishing vertically, they slowly raised and lowered their offerings, keeping in contact with the bottom. Minutes later, Suitt felt weight on the end of his line, and he set the hook. When he did, he felt the dogged pull of a keeper walleye.

He lifted the 17 1/2 -inch fish into the boat, tossed it into the livewell and went back for more. And there were more to be found.

A couple of hours later, that walleye had plenty of company in the aerated compartment in Suitt’s boat -- eight other keepers (at Clinton, walleyes 15 inches or longer) that he, Vestal and I caught, plus a few crappies that were taken along the way.

"This is just a big mud flat that comes out here for quite a ways before it drops off," he said. "I just stay on my trolling motor and try to find changes in the bottom, even little subtle ones.

"Those are the spots that will hold these walleyes."

But Suitt knows that each day is a new day when you’re walleye fishing. You can find schools of fish one day, then struggle to find them the next.

That’s how it has been at Clinton lately. Suitt was on fish, but several cold fronts cooled the action. So he moved to Melvern and Hillsdale, where he caught walleyes at each stop.

Suitt starts each day by using his fish finder to locate baitfish and the walleyes that follow them. He knows the depth at which those fish will hold can vary day to day.

Though some think of the walleye as a fish of the deep, Suitt has found success in shallow water. With Kansas reservoirs often murky, he has found that the big gamefish aren’t afraid to move into the shallows, even in the middle of the day.

"In Kansas, I catch a lot more walleyes in 5 to 10 feet of water than out in deep water," he said. "Years ago, I was out fishing deep and not doing much and I just let my boat drift shallow and I started catching fish.

"I started fishing shallow and found out that was no accident."

Suitt breaks another stereotype about Kansas walleye fishing -- that you can’t catch big fish in the heat of summer.

"I’ll take a 100-degree day with the sun shining anytime," he said. "If you can stand the heat, you can catch walleyes.

"I’ll usually drop out a little deeper and fish an edge or a dropoff. I’ve caught some big fish that way."

He still has vivid memories of how he got hooked on the Kansas gamefish.

"I was at Pomona, crappie fishing, and I got a Mepps spinner out and started casting, and I caught five nice walleyes," he said.

"After that, I would go to Perry and troll for them, and I just branched out from there.

"I’m lucky because I don’t have to go too far to find fish. Kansas is a good walleye state."