Been experimenting with casting big swimbaits for walleyes of late, with very good results. Doug Stange has been talking about paddletail swimbaits for years, but I never see folks fishing them. My interest is in catching big fish – don’t care about catching eaters – and I particularly want to see how large a bait to which these big walleyes will respond. Many of us are familiar with the BFishN Tackle Pulse-R paddle tail bait, but I wanted to take it to a whole new level. I first up-sized to a 4″ swimbait, then 5″, and have now gone to a big, fat 6″ paddletail swimbaits…and the fish continue to pound them. Look at the photo attached to see how much room a 25.5″er has in his mouth to eat an even bigger bait. Judging by the size of the mouth vs. a beefy 6″ swimbait, I think a big walleye would eat a 10″ swimbait; possibly even bigger. My average walleye is probably 24/25″ on these baits. So, is bigger better when it comes to catching larger-than-average size fish?? I plan to keep experimenting, keep up-sizing, until I find their upper limit for bites. Will need to dig into my musky arsenal to find plastics this size.
So, who’s ‘going big’ for walleyes?? What’s been your experience??
Brian
p.s. – For perspective, photo shows a med Jigging Rap, largest Pulse-R paddletail, and the 6″ Nichols swimbait I’ve been throwing lately…plus a couple walleyes that inhaled it last weekend.