Artificial Only Walleye Tournaments

Concerns have been raised about a shortage of minnows. Which brings up the question. Should walleye tournaments be artificial only? What are the reasons not to have artificial only tournaments?

I think that that’s an interesting idea Gary and if tournament anglers show that it’s possible to catch walleyes with artificials, perhaps weekend anglers will follow suit. It’s not with all live bait that there is a concern about a shortage either, it’s just minnows. Crawlers and leeches likely won’t be in short supply this season.
I fished in a artificials only walleye tournament a few years back at Devils Lake and although there was a learning curve, it was an eye opener for me how relatively easy it was to make the transiton to and catch walleyes using nothing but artificials. I’ve used little live bait to catch walleyes in open water since and there are more and more artificals options on the market every year.
Yes, fishing live bait is tradition in Minnesota walleye fishing but there are artificials that that can be used instead of live bait in the majority of circumstances. It just takes some getting used to.

How about fix the real problem and allow MN to import minnows like every other state. Most tourney guys are not using live bait anyways.

Can’t imagine too many walleye tournament anglers would like it.

Every bass and muskie tournament I know of prohibits the use of live bait. I think many walleye tournaments/circuits have converted to an immediate catch and release format now, so its an interesting question.

For every 10 walleyes I catch, I’d wager no more than 2 are on live bait when open water fishing.

Crankbaits trolled with leadcore and long lined for numbers and eaters, plastics on Dubuque rigs for size in colder water. I’ll also toss crankbaits on wingdams as long as my pocketbook will allow. One of the last tactics I’ll pull out is pulling crawlers on SDRs and Harnesses. I might throw on a creek chub or willowcat a couple times a summer in a buddy’s boat.

If there was a river tournament that didn’t allow live bait, it’d probably change absolutely nothing other than the willowcat deal on points and wingdams that lots of anglers use to get their overs.

I second what Ripjiggin said.

You don’t see many if any at all AIM or NWT winners using minnows.
Heck it’s gotten to the point if you want to win in those tourneys you better give up the trolling as well.

On a side note. It’s been 20 years or more since I fished a walleye tournament. Even when I did I never used minnows. Tourneys were always in June and I was using leaches if I used live bait.

Full draw wrote:

I second what Ripjiggin said.

You don’t see many if any at all AIM or NWT winners using minnows.
Heck it’s gotten to the point if you want to win in those tourneys you better give up the trolling as well.

Exactly maybe FFS isn’t a bad thing.
Again the live bait issue is an easy fix, but are DNR is to dumb to just fix the problem.

Head to Head was all artificial when they were running those tournaments a few years ago. When they got beat down on pool 2 the guys might’ve wanted live bait but otherwise it didn’t seem to matter to them.