what is the best walleye bait

I have had my best luck trolling a Salmo Hornet and drifting a leech on a jig. If you are fishing Lk. Erie, my advice is worthless as my walleye fishing has all been done on northern lakes like Leech in Mn. or Devil's Lake in N.D. Tom

  Mfisherman,

                      I've been having very good catches using a "slow - death" rig. I went out just the other day with two friends, one who never caught a walleye! We started fishing for trout by long lining spoons and cranks. Before I got all the lines in the water we hooked up on a walleye. Caught on a thunder stick Jr.  I quickly droped a slow death rig to the bottom, rigged with a bottom bouncer and within 3 minutes another eye!

     We changed all but one, the Jr, to slow death. We didn't get another hit on the crank bait, but wound up catching about 60 eyes through out the day. All on the slow death rigs.

    Here is how I rig them:

     1)  a No. 2 or 4 slow death hook or a 2 or 4 true-turn hook

      2)  a 3 1/2 to 4 foot floro leader  8 to 12lb test

       3) 6mm to 8mm floro bead

       4) and a swivel on the end of the leader (very inportant)

     When tying the hook leave about 1/4 inch of line on the tag end to serve as a bait keeper. Thread on the bead, then the swivel.

     Run a nightcrawler through the center of the hook and over the eye of the hook. Pinch off the tail of the crawler leaving about an inch behind the bend of the hook.

     I run them off a bottom bouncer, weight depending on how deep your fishing. 1 oz for every 10 feet is the norm. I have caught fish down to over 70 feet with a 3oz bouncer.
    
     Anyway, the idea is to slow troll at about .8 to about 1.4 mph keeping contact with the bottom. When you drop the rig over the side of the boat the worm should spin in a slow roll. It shouldn't drag straight, but spin. If it doesn't ajust the worm so you get that slow spin.

      As far as the beads go, if i'm using a 8mm bead and a #4 hook,  I like to put a tiny bead in front of the larger bead to prevent the bigger bead from running down the shaft of the hook. Colors: ruby red, flor orange and flor green seem to work best. The ruby red is my go to color, then I go from there.

http://i441.photobucket.com/albums/qq137/joegris/slowdeath005.jpg
http://i441.photobucket.com/albums/qq137/joegris/slowdeath007.jpg

Bulltrout: That sounds like a killer rig. I'm thinking it might also work with a leech if you can find them big enough! Tom

    Tom,

            Yes it does work well with leeches. You don't get the spin as with crawlers, so a bait hook would be the better choice with a leech. I tie them by the dozen so I use the slow-death hook as well as the true-turn hooks mostly in size #4 with a leech.

            Also try adding a smiley blade about 4" in front of the hook for more action. I also use "wiggle-fin" above the hook at times. Its more of a stubble action and may be what the fish want at times. Of coarse these are modifactions of slow death and not the same lure. I use them on my dead stick rod and slow death in hand. My partner likes to use YUM bait on his but I normaly out fish him using crawlers. If I get too far ahead of him, he'll switch to crawlers and bitch the whole time . He doesn't like the fact that I'm messing up his boat! He cleans his crawlers and  I don't. My boat is much easier to clean then his. Oh well thats the price you pay when catching fish.

      One thing about using leechs is if snags are a problem, the crawlers are much hardier then the leech. Crawlers stay on the hook better then a leech!


                                    Joe     LM  03

Joe: I also tie my own snells and spinner rigs. I bought a Lindy rig kit from Cabela's and haven't looked back. For leech and minnow rigging I like to use octopus circle hooks (Mustad, I believe). I think I get fewer gut hooked fish with the circle hooks and the octopus just snells up better in my book. I'm still going to try a Slow Death with a leech next spring if I can find leeches large enough. I'm talking a 5" leech. Tom

the rigs discussed above do sound deadly, however, i gotta be honest with ya here.  now, realize first i dont troll for walleye, im a one line kinda fisherman...and the ultimate bait...in ANY circumstance, for any fish, is a properly sized hook and live bait, and some weight if you need it.  in SE WI i do best with minnows or leeches...leeches usually.  but I'd say of the hundreds of walleye i catch the majority have come on minnows on a red octopus hook.  i like these hooks because in river fishing situations, where the fish strike hard, they set themselves.  it can be tough to get a good hookset on walter with traditional hooks or jigs (which isnt to say i havent caught hundreds like that too!) but i find the best setup for my situational walleye fishing, be it small rivers or the mississippi or even lakes, is a red octopus hook, the proper minnow (usually fatheads, but depends on what kind of baitfish are around) or of course, the most deadly wisconsin walleye weapon... jumbo leeches

run with walleye-be with nature

i have to say i have never used any kinda super rig or any live bait to catch wally here in kansas i use the same set up all the time being a 1/8 or 1/4 oz jig head and white, white and blue or green sassy shad swam slow or same size jig head with curl tail jigs none of these over 4 inch and i will use crankbaits not big ones but your crappie crankbaits work the best but diffrent areas people use diffrent thing but i aint never had a bad day fishing

 

I find it funny that bass fishermen use lures almost exclusively and walleye fishermen are the same with live bait. Having said that I've caught lots of walleye on live bait. The last two years I've been forcing myself to use lures only when fishing for walleyes. I'm considering Gulp as a lure for arguments sake. A couple things I've found. Big lures for big fish, usually between 3 and 4 inches long and on rare occasion up to 6 inches. Also suprising was how shallow I've found walleyes in the middle of summer. that includes rivers and lakes in the middle of the day! I have to agree that the sassy shads are a good start for lures. If your just starting out fishing for walleyes by all means use live bait. Yeah it's fun catching a bunch of little fish but catching 2 plus pounders is even more fun. Salmo Hornets, Husky Jerks and jigs with 4" ringworms all have a place in the tacklebox. A flicker rig with a 5" jumbo Gulp leech and a 3/4 egg sinker will suprise you when slow trolled.

I wonder if the reason bass guys avoid live bait is the mortality issue when releasing fish. As anyone knows, there is no better meal than a couple of 2# 'eyes fresh caught and fried with some slaw and taters on the side. Mortality is not an issue if the intent is to release the fish into hot oil! Still like my Hornets for trolling though! Tom
Fishin' fool in NE Illinois

i dont think of myself as a bass fisherman i just fish walls and crappie but i do go out to catch and relese big hybraids and for them i toss alot of difrent jigs cranks spoons and yes big fat chub minnows and shad that i catch from where i am fishing but tats what i fish for in the winter cause dont see many walleye in hot water outlets and cant ice fish cause it dose not freeze hard enough where i live

 

Think the reason why bass guys use lures is the culture of tournaments, which doesn't allow live bait. While walleye and crappie tournies allow live bait. Also most tv shows have the host catching big walleyes on live bait. Same thing goes why bass anglers don't troll, from what I've seen. The important thing is finding a technique that your comfortable and successful with and making it your fall back technique. That way you can try new and different presentations and expand your walleye catching so you limit those skunk days. The hardest part is going through a whole bunch of fishless days learning a new technique and the right time to use it. Especially when you can't fish as often as you like.