Tailwater Walleyes Today

Many jigs have colored plastic bodies with inherent actions ranging from wild to subtle. Action tails, marabou tails, or simply plain marabou or hair all have their time and place. Match the combination to the aggressiveness of the fish.

North Country river anglers add scent, profile, and taste to their offering by tipping jigheads with 21⁄2- to 3-inch fathead or shiner minnows. Insert the hook point below the lower jaw and poke it through the top of the minnow’s head. To entice strikes, the minnow doesn’t have to be alive, but it should be fresh.

Whichever jig you choose for vertical jigging, impart a slow lift-drop-pause action with your rod tip, most of the time. Sometimes, however, a simple slow drag across the basin outproduces the basic bounce, though snags make this tactic difficult. Adapt to conditions.

When walleyes strike short, nipping your minnow’s tail, add a stinger hook to the combo. Many jigs have detachable trebles on a short mono or wire striker, which clip onto an extra eye on the jighead, trailing back to place the hook near the minnow’s tail. Insert one barb in the tail, or let the hook dangle free. Nippers quickly become lippers, foiled by the treble stinger.

For a different look, slowly troll upcurrent with heavyweight 3/4- to 1-ounce thumper jigs, again using a lift-drop-pause retrieve to trigger fish. Fishing against the current requires heavier jigs to maintain bottom contact, but may provoke strikes in a crowd of anglers all fishing with the current.

During high water, try casting lightweight jigs (1/16- to 1/8-ounce) to shoreline cover like flooded wood or boulders, using a lift-drop retrieve to slip or quarter the jig downstream as you retrieve it back to the boat. This is also a great tactic for shallow eddies, wing dams, or shallow midlake shoals.

For penetrating flooded wood cover, switch from standard round heads to weedless versions, to minimize snags. High water and flooded cover tend to be late spring and early summer conditions, however. Fall, winter, and early spring generally bring low water, reduced current, and fish more related to the basin of the river.

Most jigging techniques are subtle and require the use of light line. Six- or eight-pound-test monofilament teamed with a 6-foot medium-action spinning rod is a perfect combo.

Three-ways

Three-way rigs are versatile setups for presenting livebait, lures, or combinations of both, positioning your offering just above bottom to trigger a strike. A three-way swivel attached to the main line diverges to connect a leader and lure on one terminal and a dropper lure and weight on the other. Keep both leader and dropper short in rivers to keep bait near bottom and restrict line movement in order to minimize snags.

Versatile three-ways present all manner of lures and baits—plain hooks baited with minnows; floating jigheads tipped with minnows or crawlers; wobbling minnow imitators; streamer flies; even small spinners or flutterspoons tipped with livebait. (Avoid spinners for moving downstream because the blade tends to stop rotating and hang lifeless.)

The current causes all combos to dance, wiggle, or wobble enticingly. Match current, depth, and lure style with a bell sinker between 1/4 and 4 or 5 ounces, depending on conditions. When you get a strike, drop the rod tip back slightly toward the fish, then sweepset forward to set the hook.