Livebait Rigs -- Hook, Line and Sinker

When livebait rigging, most people troll way too fast. Just because you’re backtrolling doesn’t mean you’re moving slow enough. Barely creep along, giving the fish time to respond to your bait. If a leech, crawler, or minnow isn’t squirming or swimming naturally, you’re moving too fast. Shift into neutral, pause, and let the bait entice the fish. When you spot a fish on your electronics, lift the rod tip, then pause, hovering and letting the bait rise, then flutter and swim downward, squirming enticingly toward the bottom.

Feel is important for detecting light bites and interpreting bottom conditions. It’s possible to feel the difference between rock, sand, mud, gravel, and weeds if you pay attention. Walleyes often lie along edges, transitions in bottom type, so feel for edges—changes—as well as bites.

Watch your depthfinder. Subtleties in signal interpretation reveal changes in the bottom. Fish where you see fish to improve your confidence and your odds. Sit on fish for awhile, teasing them with a live meal.

Use a 6- or 61⁄2-foot medium-action graphite spinning rod, 6- or 8-pound-test monofilament, and a pre-packaged snell. Then fine-tune if necessary by adding components like floaters for color-action-flotation, tiny flikker spinners for flash-color-vibration, and beads for color. We go into more detail in the following article.

Three-way Rigs

Three-way rigs catch walleyes in lakes, rivers, and reservoirs; along structure; across open basins; and at different depths. Livebait, plastics, crankbaits, floating jigheads, spinners, flutterspoons, and combos thereof follow the three-way lead.

The strength of three-ways is their ability to hold livebait or lures just above bottom, regardless of depth, current, or speed. An infinite range of bell sinkers, from 1/4 ounce up to 5 or 6 ounces, covers all conditions. Simply select the proper sinker size for the job.

The heart of the three-way system is the junction formed by the swivel. Three loops provide attachment points for your main line, dropper line, and leader. Varying length of the dropper line positions a lure or bait closer or farther from the bottom. Changing snell length positions your lure or bait farther or closer to the hardware, and to some degree affects how far off bottom a presentation runs. In general, the longer the leader, the farther your offering will droop toward bottom unless a float is added to increase buoyancy. A good rule of thumb is that at normal speeds for most walleye presentations—1/2 to 21⁄2 mph—a spinner or other lure will sink 1/8 to 1/5 the length of the leader below horizontal. Thus, a 5-foot leader may run as much as a foot below the swivel, more or less.

The knock against three-ways is that they’re not forgiving like livebait rigs, that you can’t feed line to a fussy biter. Not so. When a fish strikes, just drop your rod tip back toward the fish. The whole rig collapses back toward the critter, providing momentary slack until the fish pulls the slack directly between the hook and sinker. By that time, you’ve had plenty of opportunity to set the hook.

Misconception #2 is that they’re snaggy. Some truth to that, especially on rock or wood bottoms, though they’re great for open basins. Best bet for snags is to use lighter line on the dropper than on the main line. When you snag, a strong pull breaks the dropper, losing only the sinker while retaining the lure. Also, keep leaders short to prevent dragging bottom or wrapping around wood or weed cover.