Handline Drifting for Blue Cats

Thumbs up Damon!

Hey! Hand lining IS legal up here in MN/WI believe it or not!

It would be nice to have a population of Blue Cats though.
Love the sound of that single thumper.

Thanks for sharing the hand lining video. There’s a small group of anglers that hand line for walleyes up here but I really never gave it a thought to try it for our channels.

I’m going to have to etch out some time to give this a try.

I had to take a double look on the second sentence. I couldn’t imagine handlines being illegal, lol.

I have seen walleye guys handline with automatic reels.

The United Nations’ Fisheries & Agriculture Department has the best article on handlining: http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/t0511e/T0511E01.htm

They even have plans on building a wooden mechanical handline like the walleye guys use. (section 13)

See you don’t understand one thing about MN Damon…nothing is legal here. LOL!

Yes the walleye boys fish straight down and very slowly. It seems to work well for annoying fish in the deep of the sand dunes.

You seem to let out much more line dragging along the bottom. Do you get hung up frequently?

Yeah, I’ve been letting out way too much line. But I’m not fishing directly below the boat either. Down here we call it dragging. I get hung up, but not frequently. The river bottom here is bedrock, at leas the upper part of the Black Warrior. I started using slinky weight like steelhead fishermen out west, and even in the boulder ridden parts of the river they don’t hang up much. not many brush piles here either.