Walleye & Big Plastics

Guys,
I am a new poster to the site, so hello to all, and thanks
for the interesting site.
How many of you get InFisherman? While following this forum I see alot of guys post about using plastics for walleye, rather than live bait. This is a tatic I want to start to use quite a bit more. Most of the posts however indicate folks are using smaller plastics(worms & doos), lite weights, and slow presentations. (which at least for me has always been the conventional idea for cold water walleye).
In the Feb issue of InFisherman Doug Stange wrote an article about using plastics for walleye. He made a long argument for:
using larger plastics, shad bodies or paddle tails; up to 4, 5, even 6 inchs.
using faster presentations also.
His contention was: larger fish hit these types of baits,rather than the smaller/slower presentations.

So I am wondering… are any of you guys using such methods?
If so how are they working for you? I have a “hankering” to
give it a shot.

Thanks, and good luck to folks this Sat.
Inge

welcome aboard Inge…..

I too have read several articles about fishing large plastics and heavy heads… they seem to be targeted for deeper water presentations….. Ive not heard anyone talk much about this either….. but the plastics we are using are not really small…. most of them are 4-5 inches which are in the range you are talking…… in fact the Kalins are 5 inch tails I think… and there are some new Doos that are also 5 inches…. but the thing is most of the big eyes that have been caught on the board on plastics have been caught in water shallower than 15’…. many times in rip rap, wing dams and areas where a heavy jig will get you snagged extra quick….. the art to this kind of fishing is to match the head size to the current so that the jig floats right through the strike zone and gets BIT instead of SNAGGED……

I did not see the article… but just this week I was considering starting a thread titled….

Heavy or Light, which is right?….

so it looks like you have done it for me!…. my own thinking kind of concluded there is room for both tactics… and Im considering trying to hammer the bottom with large plastics and heavy heads… I have just the rig to do it with… the same one I use with sonars and jiggin spoons…. and I have some large shads and grubs and even super doos…. and Im getting some larger ring worms too… just for fun…..

but recently Ive seen with my own eyes the effectiveness of the reverse tactic with jigs so light that you cant really maintain bottom contact being very effective…

We primarily use 4″ ringworms, and my personal favorite in pursuit of the big mama walleyes, the 5″ K-Grub. We’ve been talkin’ “want big fish, fish big baits” here for some time now. Never caught a “big” fish on a 4″ super doo… lots of 4 – 6 Lb fish though. I’d agree with the article from what you’ve stated, I don’t usually read any fishing mags so I’ve not read it myself, the typical 2.5″ fathead impaled on a 3/8 ounce jig and fished vertically rarely produces fish of any size. Just prior to the spawn I like to use a snapping technique with the ringworms that will leave a guy trying to turn the doorknob to his house with his forearms… we really snap the holy ba-jeebers out of the darn things and its reallty hard on the wrists after a long day on the water!

I do disagree with the need for heavy heads though. At least on the stretch of river I fish. 1/8th ounce is about as heavy as we go and we do catch our share of the big girls. Most of our bigger fish come very shallow and rarely if ever do I stick a quality fish in water deeper than 25′. Usually 10′ or less. No need for a heavy head fishing that shallow.

Inge

The search function on this site is just way too dar nhandy. To give you an idea of how we fish the larger plastics, take a peak at some of the fishing reprots and posts that I dug up in about 4 minutes using the search tool. Reports are from pools 2 – 4 but you could do an expanded search to pull info from just about any stretch of the river you were interested in.

http://www.fishtheriver.com/reports/index.asp?id=785
http://www.fishtheriver.com/reports/index.asp?id=807
http://www.fishtheriver.com/reports/index.asp?id=870

Walleye Forum Post #1

Walleye Forum Post #2

You’re right,H20, we have never caught a “pig” in over
10-15′ of water except during the flood season, and
even then they were at the top or bottom end of a hole.
Not in the deepest part. 90% of the guys I see out there
are fishing too deep. (Probably should’nt have said that)
You agree?

WKW

Absolutely Wayne. My biggest fish each season and all of the fish I’ve caught over 10 lbs have always come fairly shallow. I’ve caught some dingers off the ends of wingdams in low flow situations and the fish are deeper in those instances, sometimes pushing 20′ deep +/- . But I’ve never caught a big fish vertical jigging on the river in water deeper than 20′. Just doesn’t happen for me. When I’m snapping plastics, I covered this technique in depth last spring at the walleye searchers seminar I did with Chris Tuckner, I’m usually topping out with my jig head weights around 3’8 ounce. Interesting topic…

Guys,
thanks for the replies.
Fact is I am mainly a lake fisherman. I have been hitting
the river, pools 4 thru 9 for duck hunting for ~10 years. Last 3 or 4 springs a buddy of mine and I hit the river, usually pools 7 or 8, for a day walleye fishing. We have caught a few using jigs&minnows but no hogs. So I started reading this site, and hope to use some of the info you guys are talking about.
I plan on going on pool 4 in the near future, and use Everts as the launch site. So… if you see a Black&Tan Lund 1775 ProV, dual console, 150optimax – that would be me, so say hello.
Thanks again…
Inge

Hey James, I don’t remember reading anything about snapping ringworms. Do you do this vertical jigging or casting?

Gentlemen-I read the article and found it to be full of great tidbits. I’ve used plastics shallow as have most on this subject and had success. What Stange was saying was there are times when the fish are a bit deeper and one should continue to fish with platics but do so with a larger jighead in deeper water. He made a point to say that you’re fishing from an anchored position, from the back of the boat, casting at a 30 degree angle. From there let the jig find bottom, sweep it across until it’s straight out the back of the boat. At that point, you swim it back to the boat very close to the bottom. It’s really a spin off of the shallow water 1/8 oz. method already used. He made mention of the fact that if you cast too far upstream (much more than a 30 degree angle) and let the jig hit bottom, it’s just too fast for the ‘eyes and not very natural looking. Just like the shallow water method, his point is to keep the bait in front of the fish as long and as naturally as you can and the weight doesn’t matter to the walleye. I’ll be trying it. And if that doesn’t work I’ll be pitching up on shore with my 3/16 or 1/8 oz. jig and plastic.

Inge-If you’re interested, Stange had an article in the January issue that was specific to jigs, plastics, and rivers. I did read the February article but you may find the January article interesting as it relates to rivers only.

SetTheHook

No, I guess I haven’t talked about that one for awhile. Last spring we had such an unbelieveably good 3-way and crank bite that I wasn’t forced to go in that direction and believe me, despite the fact that before and after the spawn snapping plastics can be jawdropping effective, it’s so hard on the body that a guy does tend to shy away from the technique when you have to fish day after day. Plus I can only ask younger, stronger clients to put up with the demands of this technique. That being said, some of the regular users… TomP., Ralph, Mitch Mitties…. they’ve seen this technique work first hand on trips when the fishing was down right awful… unless you were snapping plastics.

Here’s how I do it… I slowly troll upstream with my electric. Slowly. Hardly making any progress of any kind. I make a short pitch behind the boat with a jig head just heavy enough to find bottom with a good chunk of line out. Looks like I’m setting up to jig troll to be honest. To start the snapping, drop your rod tip back to the jig and flip your rod tip forward and upwards. Follow the jig back to the bottom on a semi-tight line and instantly repeat as soon as the jig returns just above bottom. No pauses. No hesitation. And snap violently to start and adjust the intensity of the snap from there to match the mood of the fish. I’ve had many more days when I couldn’t snap it too hard than days when the fish wanted what would amount to an exaggerated jig stroke.

Try it when things get cruddy pre or post-spawn. When nobody else seems to catch anything, nothing, I’ve had 30 – 40 fish days with a good portion of this fish on the plus side of the 20″ mark. It’s not magic… but when the fish aren’t thinking about food, provoking a reaction strike is the only alternative.

Thanks James, now I do remember reading that.
Interesting, as I think I’ve done that technique, but not really on purpose. Sometimes when vertical jigging I’ll want to move out farther off a break or shallower or around some structure, speed up the trolling motor and keep the jig down there and rip it as I go along. Have picked up several fish that way and had thought about doing it more.

I read those two articles as well. I very rarely use live bait for any type of fishing so I’m always interested in discussions of this nature. One of the other things I noticed in relation to this has me puzzled. Packaged with my Jan. In-Fisherman was the Pure Fishing 2003 magazine/catalogue. In the product section they list Trilene XT Solar and in a story about jigging plastics, it is mentioned prominently as an aid to line watching. Considering the fact that it is now unavailable, did anyone else find that to be a little odd? I mean, the fact that it was being discontinued was known almost a year ago. Anyway, the IronSilk seems to be an adequate, although more expensive replacement(isn’t that the way it always goes?). I’m not sure, but it seems to get easier to handle with age. I used it on reel last summer and then put the reel on an ice rod this winter and it seems to be getting more “relaxed” somehow. Strange stuff.
After fishing with James and seeing how much of an advantage high visibility line can be when jigging plastics, I’m going to check out Sufix and Ande high vis lines as a possible “cheaper” replacement for XT. They both seem to have that same combination of color, abrasion resistance and line diameter that made XT Solar so popular.

Hi James thanks for the younger stronger compliment. That snap jigging technique you taught us that day really helped to put some nice fish in the boat. I’ve used it many times since with allot of success and agree that when fishing is a little slow snap jigging a ring worm or 5″ kalin will put some extra fish in the boat. See ya on the water……Mitch

James, I’ve got a question for you. Will big plastics for walleyes be covered in the video you made?

Quick question. What style jig head do you use when snapping or no big deal. Thanks

Plastics are the focus of the video. Yesterday Dustin and I spent all day in the studio finishing up the voice over work. Graphics are done…. now to final edit! We’re close. Can’t wait until it’s done so I can get a good nights sleep!

Thanks James, I can’t wait either!!!