Lead, Line, Leaders, Hooks, Components

The walleye world’s changing at a frenetic pace. Every year, we’re deluged with a bewildering array of new electronics, more open-water trolling accessories, and a growing variety of lure styles and color patterns. Technology grows increasingly more complex in order to make our lives simpler and our fishing more effective.

As we proceed into the new millennium, those of us who remember when walleye fishing was as simple as a hook, line, and sinker can take comfort that some things, like fundamental livebait rigging, never go out of style. At times, the effectiveness of squiggly, wiggly, lively livebait just can’t be duplicated by all the hardware at our disposal.

When the goin’ gets tough—cold fronts, clear water, fussy fish—step back in time to a simpler age when patience and perseverance prevailed. That means minnows, leeches, nightcrawlers, and other livebaits presented in as natural and tempting a fashion as possible.

Anatomy of a Slipsinker Livebait Rig

When we think about presenting livebait for walleyes, the slipsinker livebait rig immediately comes to mind. It is undoubtedly the most popular rigging variation among mobile anglers. A sliding weight threads onto your line, takes your bait to bottom, and keeps it there during backtrolling and control-drifting presentations. A snelled, baited hook is positioned a set distance from the sinker, using a barrel swivel (most popular), O-ring, split shot, or bobber stop to prevent the hook from moving up to the slip sinker.

When a walleye takes your bait, however, nothing prevents the line and rig from sliding back in the other direction, through the hole in the sinker, once you release tension on the line. Walleyes are free to mouth the bait, run a short distance, or simply lie there awhile before taking the bait deep enough to be hooked. Since they can’t detect your presence through slack line, they don’t get spooked. When it’s time to set the hook, you engage the reel, take up slack, and set the hook. The perfect presentation for fussy fish.

Slipsinker rigs can be constructed with hooks, floating jigheads, on-line floats, tiny spinners, and other variations. Fish them with slow lift-drops, or pause and let them rest on bottom when you’re sure fish are around. Thus they tend to work best when walleyes are anywhere from belly to the bottom to perhaps three feet above. Their real strength, however, is presenting lively bait in a natural fashion, unfettered by unnecessary hardware.

Anatomy of a Three-Way Rig

Three-way rigs are another popular variation of livebait rigging, quite popular with river anglers and bank fishermen, though underused by many mobile anglers who fish from boats. Three-ways typically incorporate heavier weights (several ounces) than slipsinker rigs, though they also can be used with lighter weights. Their strength, however, is using enough weight to get down and stay down in fast current, deep water, or at rapid trolling speeds.

A three-way swivel forms the junction between the main line, leader, and dropper line. At the end of the dropper, is attached a lead weight substantial enough to keep the bait or lure down on bottom under prevailing conditions. Match the length of the dropper to the desired distance you wish to position your bait or lure off bottom. And as with slipsinker rigs, snell length should match the distance you wish your lure or bait to run behind the swivel.