WALLEYE TACKLE & TECHNIQUES

Transcription

1 1 WALLEYE TACKLE & TECHNIQUES I have often stated that I believe there are more walleye taken by accident than by design. Most people who have caught only one or two walleye will admit that they were fishing for something else when their only walleye(s) climbed on. They will also usually admit to getting skunked every time they tried to catch walleyes on purpose. That s the way it often goes. Some hungry or inquisitive walleye picks up a worm or piece of cut bait meant for catfish, and the lucky angler gets to take one home to dinner. Then, when that same angler tries to duplicate the feat, they catch only cats. Frustrated, they buy lots of walleye lures and donate them to the lake s snags without ever hanging another walleye. BAITS: There are many ways to go after walleyes on Utah Lake. One of the simplest and often most effective methods is to soak a minnow. Of course, in Utah it must be a dead minnow. When walleye are cruising around looking for groceries a dead minnow is usually welcome on the menu. Minnows in the 3 to 5 range are generally best, but sometimes you will do better with either larger or smaller ones. Chub minnows are good walleye bait. If they are fresh and firm you can hook them through the gill collar. If they are a bit softer you will do better by hooking them back near the tail and wrapping the hook around the spinal column. That is also better if the fish are hitting the tail first. A nice eater size wallie taken by dragging a chub minnow around behind a float tube.

2 2 If you don t catch your own minnows you can buy frozen chub minnows or redside shiners at numerous locations. Chubs hold up better as bait. Redsides usually get soft when frozen. Some of the best minnows in Utah Lake are carp minnows up to about 5 or 6 inches. You can sometimes harvest large quantities of carplets in the late summer when they swim in schools in the shallows, trying to avoid predators. You can also harvest juvenile white bass for bait. There is no limit on them and no restrictions on using them for bait in Utah Lake except they cannot be fished as live bait. Young-of-the-year whities are about 4 long by late summer and there are huge swarms of them back in some of the harbors and inside pockets in shoreline reeds. Use a fly rod and small flies or a small jig and worm, under a bobber to fill buckets with them for the freezer. Almost all species in the lake will munch the baby whities even other white bass not much bigger than the bait. White bass spawn in May, and by late summer the young are already about 3 to 4 inches long. They are a favorite menu item for walleyes and make good bait if you can catch a bunch of them. Of course you have to kill them first. This is Utah and no live bait is permitted. There are several ways you can rig minnows according to the varying conditions of water temperature, depth, clarity and bottom conditions. A lot of Utah Lake walleyes are taken on nothing more exotic than a minnow pinned to a hook and allowed to rest on the bottom for whatever comes along. Like night crawlers, minnows will take virtually all species from this lake. It s a chuck and chance it deal. Some like to hang the minnow below a bobber either on a plain hook or on a jig. A bobber helps keep the bait off the bottom (and out of the rocks) as well as serving as a strike indicator when something munches on the bait. One of the top secret methods of presenting minnows to walleyes incorporates an old steelhead lure the floating Corky. These little brightly colored floats were originally designed to help float gobs of roe up above the rocks when drifting for salmon and steelhead. Walleye and catfish anglers have discovered that Corkies also act as both attractors and floats to keep the bait up off the bottom and to make it more visible. There have been a lot of walleye taken from Utah Lake on corky rigs and floating jig heads. One of the good things about fishing a corky rig is that you can vary the length of the leader to present the bait as high or low in the water column as you wish. You make a corky rig by putting a small sliding weight above a swivel. To the swivel you add a leader a 12 to 14 leader is most common. The corky is threaded on the leader between the swivel and the hook and then the bait is pinned on the hook. The sliding sinker lets you see or feel bites better and allows you to let the fish move off with the bait a little before you cross their glassy eyes.

3 3 Corkies are small colorful floats that can be threaded on your leader to hold worms, minnows or cut bait up off the bottom. Originally designed for drifting for steelhead and salmon, they work fine for Utah Lake wallies too. Night crawlers are good walleye baits almost everywhere. They work well in Utah Lake if you can keep the white bass, bullheads, channel cats and other pesky nibblers from eating them first. Rig and fish crawlers just as suggested for minnows. Many crawler fans soak them below a bobber. They are also good when drifted or dragged slowly behind a boat either plain, on a jig or on a bottom bouncer rig with a spinner and worm harness. That is a time-honored method for catching walleyes almost anywhere they hang out. A nice 24 inch walleye taken by TubeBabe near the Battle Creek inlet, just north of Lindon Harbor. The fish took a whole nightcrawler on a jig head being fished just above the bottom under a bobber. Cut baits of many kinds will also catch walleyes. Perhaps one of the best for Utah Lake is a strip of white bass flesh. Since walleyes feed heavily on white bass they develop a taste for them. The fresher the better. No fish attractant needed. Stick with the natural flavor. Again, you can fish cut baits on the bottom, below a bobber or riding up off the bottom with a Corky rig. Yellow perch also make excellent bait for Utah Lake walleyes and it is legal to use perch here. Perch have increased in numbers and comprise a significant part of the walleye diet. Whenever you go fishing at a lake full of pesky perchlets, keep a bunch to serve up to the marbleeyes in Utah Lake. Use them whole or cut into fillets or strips. Wallies will also hit carp meat strips being soaked for kitties. Ditto for Sucker meat. But, since the beginning of the June Sucker Recovery Program it is illegal to keep or use any kind of suckers for bait here. A Crawler Harness is a rig made with spinners and beads and usually a double hook setup. These are typically fished with a weighted bottom bouncer rig but can be fished many ways and with either worms, whole minnows or strips of cut bait.

4 4 HARDWARE : Now, let s talk about specifically targeting walleyes with lures. It is probably more difficult than you might expect, but not as hard as some experts try to make you think it is. Catching walleyes on lures is more about location, timing and technique than simply the model or the color of the lure. This is truly a type of fishing where poor fisherman might not catch anything even on the right lure but knowledgeable anglers often catch something even on the wrong lure. Like many other Utah Lake anglers, I have caught some of my walleyes on small lures being fished for white bass or other species. I once caught a fat 11# wallie while vertical jigging a small spoon for white bass from my float tube in American Fork Boat Harbor. The spoon was no larger than a nickel and the big walleye had three whole white bass in its gut. Go figure. Maybe it was planning to use my small lure to floss after the main course. My phattie 11# walleye taken on a small spoon in American Fork Boat Harbor. It was caught in November while vertical jigging with a small spoon for the white bass that had crowded into the harbor in the cooling water of late fall. In fact, this fish had 3 white bass in its gut. Walleyes seem to share a few common traits wherever they are found. One of those is that you will typically catch more with a slow steady retrieve (or troll) than with a faster or jerky motion on the lure. Many successful walleye trollers jokingly refer to trolling at paint drying speed. It is especially important to troll slowly when dragging a worm harness or a minnow and jig across the bottom. You will definitely get more hits if you don t over-work the offerings. Only during the post spawn period in late spring do walleyes typically become more active and more prone to chase faster moving lures. This is when the water temps are rising and the fish are trying to replace calories lost during the spawn when they did not feed. I have seen walleyes taken around the first part of June that hit spoons or lipless crank baits being trolled much faster than typical walleye speeds. They will also hit plastics fished with faster retrieves when they are on the feed. But, for most of the year, if you fish specifically for walleyes you will do better by presenting lures slow and steady, near the bottom. Those who troll for walleyes on Utah Lake have learned to adapt to the challenges of shallow and often murky water. They have found that stealth is critical. If they run gas trolling motors they need to either use planer boards, to get their offerings well out away from the boat, or to troll with a lot of line and to make turns to run the lures through water not disturbed by the passing of a noisy motor overhead. Noise sensitive walleyes usually move out away from a boat as it goes by.

5 5 The availability of quiet yet powerful electric trolling motors has been a boon to walleye trollers. These motors are increasingly popular on both boats and pontoons. A quiet running electric allows the angler to move slowly across shallow flats, trailing baits or lures fairly close to the boat, but only one rod length out, and to still catch a fair number of fish. In fact, you should try to keep your crank bait or plastic down at about a 45-degree angle and not too far back, to minimize snagging on the occasional rock or other debris on even the flattest bottoms. You can lift or drop the offerings to maintain close proximity to the bottom without actually dragging the bottom. Of course, rigging with a snag-resistant bottom bouncer rig can help a lot too, although it may impede the action, feel and appeal of finesse plastics. Trolling is the most efficient way to search for walleyes when they are scattered and not orienting to shorelines or structure. Otherwise you are obliged to just chuck and chance it. There are times when the fish congregate near shore for spawning or feeding or to hang out in the warmer water coming in from springs. This is when the bank tanglers, waders, tubers and tooners have the best of it. In those situations you must position yourself in the right spot and cast into the precise area where the fish are holding or cruising. Once you get in the zone you can sometimes catch fish after fish while everybody else in the area is getting only casting practice. Dedicated walleye chasers on Utah Lake carry big tackle boxes filled with a variety of spinners, spoons and hardbaits as well as the universal soft plastics. And, there will be days or times during any given day when one lure will seemingly be more productive than any of the others. That s why it pays to bring an assortment. You never know what they might want and sometimes you have to serve up everything in your arsenal before you get bit. Walleye are well known for their attraction to blades regular spinners, spinnerbaits, crawler harness rigs and jigs with spinner blades...like the Roadrunners. The flash and vibration put out by rotating blades draws in the toothy critters and gets them to open their mouths when nothing else seems to work. Spinners can be fished by casting and retrieving, trolling or even by vertical jigging from a boat or under the ice. This aggressive post spawn walleye inhaled a white marabou Roadrunner jig at the Bubble-up. These lures are characterized by incorporating a small spinner blade into the head of the jig so that when it is jigged or retrieved the blade creates flash and vibration. Spinners are often great lures for walleyes. This Roostertail spinner is popular in several colors for both white bass and walleyes.

6 6 Lipless crankbaits like Rat-L-Traps and Rattlin Raps also account for a lot of walleyes every year on Utah Lake. These so-called idiot baits are fished by casting and retrieving with no special action required. They wiggle and rattle their way back in. Active or inactive walleyes will bite them. But rocks like them too. Like all lures, they can be costly if you let them spend too much time too close to the structure. This is a lipless crankbait a Rattlin Rap in fire tiger finish. The combination of colors, wiggle and rattle all appeal to walleyes. There are countless crankbaits that include a diving lip on the front. Some are more minnow shaped like Rapalas. Others have deeper or wider bodies. The smaller the lip plastic or metal the shallower the lure will dive. Those with bigger lips dive deeper. These are not good for shallow rocky areas such as the rocky shelves off Lincoln Beach or at Bird Island. One of the longtime favorite lipped crankbaits on Utah Lake is the Thin Fin. It used to be the standard for the walleyes but was discontinued by the Storm Company the original manufacturer. It has since been bought out and resurrected and can be purchased from several sources. The deep narrow shape and unique vibration really appeal to walleyes. It also runs less than 6 feet deep which helps reduce your expenses when fishing shallower waters. They are also great for trolling over wide areas when searching out walleye holding zones. This Thin Fin lure is a good representation of a small white bass one of the primary forage items for Utah Lake walleyes. It is a great lure for fishing over shallow rocks. It dives only a few feet and has a great wiggle. One concept used widely by knowledgeable Utah Lake walleye anglers is the use of hardbaits which float when resting but dive when retrieved floating-diving crankbaits. These usually dive no more than a few feet and return to the surface when you quit reeling. That can help a lot when you need to free one from a snag. If you break it off, it may still float to the top so that you can retrieve it. Otherwise, the floating and diving thing can sometimes be appealing to predators. Then there are the spoons and blade baits like Kastmasters and Sonars. These lures can be effective when cast and retrieved or trolled but they work better for jigging through the ice.

7 7 These vibrating blade baits are designed to be cast or trolled. They incorporate a metal blade with a heavy lead body. The shape causes them to vibrate when moved through the water. Although they do catch walleyes when cast or trolled, they catch far more out of Utah Lake when jigged beneath the ice. Walleyes also munch fur and feathers. Jigs made from hair or feathers account for a lot of walleyes every year. The use of these jigs has declined with the increased availability of plastics in such a wide variety of shapes and colors. But it is hard to beat the live action of a marabou jig especially in cold water. An assortment of light colored marabou jigs and Roadrunners. Walleyes also like blacks, purples and hot pinks. These jigs work well all year, including through the ice. Ditto for flies. Walleyes are not widely recognized as good targets for a fly rod, but in the shallow waters of Utah Lake it is simple and effective to present big patterns that represent small white bass, bullheads or other forage species. And it is actually easier to swim a fly slowly over shallow rocks than to work even the lightest jig the same way without snagging up. Back in the 1970 s and 80 s I did more fly fishing. I caught many walleyes on flies both with a fly rod and on flies fished with spinning tackle. This is a group shot of several fish I caught one evening at Lincoln Beach while fishing flies on a drop shot rig. Both the white bass and the walleye seemed to prefer a wooly bugger with a dark red body and a black tail and hackle. They were also taking whites, chartreuse and all black.

8 8 Yes, there are a lot of baits and lures that MIGHT catch walleyes at any given time on any given day. But, the trick is to accumulate enough knowledge about the fish and their eccentricities to enable you to figure out the place and the pattern on any specific trip to the water. There are probably more things that WILL catch walleyes than things that won t. I am amazed at some of the stories I have heard about what people have been using when they caught one of those finicky fishies When I have watched groups of crazed walleye floggers working over a small piece of water I see just about every type, size, shape and color of lure imaginable. And, when the fish are active, it seems like they hit just about everything at one time or another. I have long believed that whatever you fish will work, as long as you fish it in the right place, the right way at the right time and that you fish it with confidence. Yes, colors and types of lures can sometimes seem very important, but fishing with constant expectation of success and being ready for it will put more walleye fillets on your table. FINESSE PLASTIC FISHIN That being said, let s look at one special technique that can definitely improve your walleye success ratio. This involves the use of plastics, rather than spoons, spinners or hard baits. Plastic grubs, tubes and twisters and some swim baits are overwhelmingly the lures of choice for most consistently successful walleye anglers on Utah Lake. There are plenty of eyes taken on all the other stuff. But for finesse fishing you can t beat a well-presented piece of plastic. The most successful walleye anglers on Utah Lake typically use a fairly light spinning outfit. The rod should be anywhere from 5 1/2 to 7 feet, with a fast tip. You can use anything from light to medium action with medium light being a good choice for most plastics. It is a matter of feel and personal preference. Reels should be small and light, with good drag and capable of fishing line from 4# to 8# test. I usually fish 6#. It is light enough to cast well, with light jigs, but strong enough to set the hook in big fish and to help save most of my snagged lures. Most importantly, the reel should be ultra smooth so that you can concentrate on the feel of the jig and not be distracted by a stiff or balky retrieve. The choice of line is one area in which you do not want to buy the cheapest you can find. Line for casting jigs in rocky areas for walleyes should be both strong and flexible. It should have good knot strength and good abrasion resistance. Getting pulled through rocks and stickups and being chewed on by toothy walleyes requires that your line can take some abuse. I have used Excalibur by Silver Thread for several years and have never had a fish break me off on it. In fact, it is tough to break 6# Excalibur when fishing from a float tube. You really have to kick back and haul on it to break off a snag that will not come free. There are lots of good lines on the market these days. The better quality you put on your reel spool the more enjoyment you will get from your fishing and the more walleyes you are likely to hook and bring to net. You will usually need to make longer casts if you are shore bound or wading than if you are afloat in a boat, tube or toon. However, it is not uncommon for the fish to cruise within easy casting distance from shore and many walleye chasers cast too far and wash lures in fishless water a high percentage of the time. If you are casting out a long ways, but most of your strikes are coming within a few feet of shore, try casting more parallel to the shore, in the same zone or depth where you are getting bit most often.

9 9 Once you locate a holding area, either while wading or afloat, position yourself far enough away to minimize spooking the fish, but close enough for easy casting and control. The shorter the casts you make the greater the accuracy and the feel you will have while retrieving your lure. While walleyes sometimes chomp fiercely on the lure, they often simply swim up and take hold of it. You detect only a slight back pressure, also described as a rubber band feel. That s why it is important to have light well-balanced tackle that allows you to feel everything that is going on at the business end of your line. You must be prepared to strike whenever there is a change in the force. The other fishermen around you might laugh at your whiffs but when you are the only one hooking fish you can laugh back at them. This nice eater size male was taken on a purple and chartreuse 3 plastic on a 1/16 oz. head fished slowly over the rocks at Lincoln Beach. It hit fairly hard but many walleyes just stop the jig and the hit is difficult to detect. Focus and concentration are key elements for maximizing your catch of walleyes. Once you have the right tackle that allows you to cast and retrieve effortlessly and to maintain your full attention to your lure you are better prepared for getting serious. Focus on the difference in the way different lures are acting on the retrieve. You can actually feel the variations in the depths they run and how the actions differ with other sizes and designs on the vibrating tails. You must fish every cast with positive expectation that a fish will interrupt your retrieve at any second, regardless of what has happened on your previous 100 casts. If your mind is wandering when you get an inquiry you give the fish time to spit out the fake food before you set the hook. Sometimes the only indication of a taker is the sudden stop of the vibration of the lure with no detectable strike. If you are not paying attention you might just keep reeling until the fish (which has been swimming toward you, along with your lure) simply opens its mouth and releases your lure. You completely missed an opportunity because you were bored or distracted. Something I suggest to walleye newbies is to fish with a cocked wrist. Make the cast and then lock your wrist in one position letting the reel do the work. Don t use the rod tip to add any additional motion. Reel slowly and steadily, keeping the wrist cocked and ready for an instant hook set. Turn the reel handle just fast enough to keep the plastic running slightly above the bottom. It is important that you not only maintain total feel of the rod, reel, line and lure, but that you watch the line and the rod tip too. Sometimes the line will just give a slight twitch, where it enters the water. At other times, the visible vibrations on the rod will suddenly stop and the tip will dip just a little. You don t always feel these things. You must watch carefully for them and if you do not react and set the hook you just released a fish without the fun of the fight.

10 10 Mastering feel, finesse and technique is more important than which size, shape and color of plastic you throw. Remember, good fisherman can catch fish on the wrong lures but poor fishermen often cannot catch fish on the hot lures. That being said, there is a lot of both art and science in putting together a good lure box for Utah Lake walleyes. Since we have been discussing plastics let s talk about colors for both plastics and jig heads. A good generalized statement would be that visibility is more important than using an exact shade of a certain color. Even though walleyes can see shapes in the dark they cannot always see colors well enough to differentiate them. Only in clear water and good light can subtle color shades have a noticeable effect on walleye acceptance. Utah Lake is not famous for having clear water. But, when water levels are up and there has not been any significant wind for a few days the lake sometimes becomes more green than brown and visibility can be measured in feet instead of inches. On those days solid colors can be more effective than bright contrasting colors. Good solid colors are white, black, purple, and chartreuse. Sometimes a motor oil or brown color can work well too. All of these can give off light waves in the same spectrums as natural food in the lake leeches, worms, crawdads, small catfish and the lighter colored species, like white bass or crappie fry. If the lake is in a more typical murky condition solid dark colors like black or purple can still work well. However, rigging them on a high visibility head can help. Try using dark red, hot red, orange or pink heads. Or, you can use black, purple or red heads with high-vis chartreuse eyes. Eyes can add a lot to the effectiveness of almost any jig, of any color, in any water condition. Much of the best finesse plastic fishing for walleyes on Utah Lake is done during the fall and/or spring. The water is comfortably cooler than peak high summer temps and is usually somewhat clouded by seasonal breezes. During these transition times of the year, there is traditionally more wind, which keeps the water stirred up. When the water is cold and cloudy, that s when you tie on brightly colored two-tone plastics, with contrasting colored jig heads. The fish move more slowly in colder water and they will not chase faster moving lures. You need to serve something that they can see well and which moves slowly enough to trigger a strike. Most of the regulars on Utah Lake favor plastics that combine a dark colored body with a tail of chartreuse, for contrast and visibility. Black and chartreuse is among the most contrasting and visible combinations for cold murky water. However, almost any other dark color combined with chartreuse will work. Other popular main body colors are smoke, purple, blue, watermelon, orange and red. Black and white combos can also be effective, as can orange and white, chartreuse and white, pink and white, etc. Almost any color plastic will work for walleyes if fished in the right place the right way. Here are some of my favorite two-tones and the basic clear sparkle tail I begin with, before dying them. From the left orange/chartreuse, red/chartreuse, purple chartreuse, junebug/chartreuse and black/chartreuse.

11 11 Some of these colors can be purchased from tackle manufacturers or retailers. Some of the more exotic combos must be made to order either by the angler or someone with the materials and know-how to do the job. A few of the Utah Lake walleye crowd actually hybridize their own combo plastics. They buy packages of two different colors say one of solid purple and one of chartreuse solid or sparkle. Then, they cut the tails off one and the thick front parts off the other, and then weld them together. It is not difficult, if you have either an electric hot plate or a small burner. The idea is to hold the ends of both pieces to be joined over the heat or touch them to the burner and then join and hold them until the softened plastic hardens, heat welding the two different colors together. You can also use special plastic glues a type of super glue especially formulated for gluing soft plastics together. I have a couple of custom made hybrid colors that I use in Utah Lake more than any other colors. One is bright red glitter body with a chartreuse sparkle tail. The other is a bright purple glitter with a chartreuse sparkle tail. They work year round, for just about everything in the lake including white bass, channel cats, bullheads, crappies and even carp. All species have eaten those crazy creations and sometimes I catch several species on the same day on the same lures. This healthy wallie was taken near the mouth of the Spanish Fork River in late August, right at daybreak, with a red and chartreuse 3 plastic shad grub on a 1/16 oz. head, fished slowly in only about 4 feet of water. One of my favorite walleye lures for Utah Lake. It is a 3 chartreuse Shad Grub with the front part dyed red. The hook is a 2/0 red Matzuo sickle hook with a 1/16 oz. head red glitter with a chartreuse eye. I make all of my custom colored creations because I have never found the exact colors I prefer from any other source. I buy solid color plastics, in 2, 3, 4 and 5 sizes and then color them the way I want them, using plastic dyes. For the red sparkle and chartreuse sparkle combo I start with a solid chartreuse sparkle grub or shad body. Then I use plastic dye to color the front half red. For the purple and chartreuse I get a better end result by starting with a 3X clear sparkle body and then dying the front purple and the back chartreuse. The solid colors I prefer to start with are clear sparkle, smoke sparkle, chartreuse sparkle, solid white, solid pearl and solid pearl chartreuse.

12 12 I use special plastic lure dyes to create a wide variety of color combos or to brighten factory colors. You have to practice using these dyes and learn the characteristics. Some with result in different colors when applied over plastics of different basic colors. I also pour and paint all of my own jig heads. I discovered a long time ago that I could not find the exact combination of colors, hook sizes and weighted heads that I preferred so I have made my own for many years. When fishing in water shallower than six feet deep, it is better to fish a light head, to avoid having heavier jigs dive into the rocks. I use 1/16 oz. jigs for fishing around the rocky areas and off the dikes of Utah Lake. The lighter weight allows me to reel my plastic slowly, just above the bottom, without having to reel too fast and without losing many jigs to the rock gods. You can buy lots of jigs with 1/16 oz. heads. The big problem is that the hooks are usually far too small to fish them with the larger size plastics you need for walleyes. Most commercially made 1/16 oz jigs have hook sizes no larger than size 6 or 4. They are made for fishing small plastics for crappie and perch. I pour my 1/16 oz. jig heads on larger hooks from size 1 to 4/0. For the 3 and 4 plastics I use the most, I typically fish them on 1/0 or 2/0 hooks. These balance just about right with the size of the plastics, and provide much better hooking ability for largemouthed fish like walleyes. As mentioned, I also custom paint my jig heads. Some are plain white, black or dark red. Some have single spot eyes, of white, black, red or chartreuse. The heads I use for fishing bright contrasting combo colors, in cold murky water, are usually a bit gaudier. Some are two-tone black and white, black and chartreuse, hot red and white, hot red and chartreuse or chartreuse with a hot red eye.

13 13 Examples of some other heads I like to use with plastics on Utah Lake. Some have eyes with either white or chartreuse and a black pupil. Others have single color eye spots. The two jig heads in the lower right corner are dip heads with two tone heads created by dipping the top part in another color after the base coat of lighter colors. These all make good contrasting colors for fishing with various color plastics. Some of my most effective heads the ones I fish with my favorite red or purple and chartreuse plastics are either purple or red glitter with a bright chartreuse eye with black pupil. I probably catch more fish, of all species, from Utah Lake, on my custom colored plastics by using a red glitter head (chartreuse eye) than with all other lures and baits combined. And, that same combo is effective in many other waters too. In the spring months, a lime sherbet plastic can be very effective. This is a combo of lime green top and a white curly tail bottom (or vice versa), fished on almost any contrasting head. Hot pink works well, but so does chartreuse with a red eye or hot orange glitter. Several plastics manufacturers sell tubes, grubs and swim baits in fire tiger colors green, yellow and orange sometimes with black stripes. For some reason this color combo is appealing to walleyes and other species almost year round. I fish it mostly with orange or fire tiger colored jig heads often rigged in tandem with one of my other favorite colors. Fire tiger is a color combo that works for walleyes almost everywhere. It is especially effective in cold or murky water when the better visibility of bright contrasting colors helps to get more bites. This walleye was taken on a 3 fire tiger plastic being fished on an 1/8 oz. pony jig head also painted fire tiger with a chartreuse sparkle blade.

14 14 One of the best late fall colors, which also can be deadly in prespawn weeks, is hot pink plastic with either a pink or a hot red head. If you can find a good bright hot pink, with silver sparkle, it is well received by almost all the fish in Utah Lake during the cooler months. It seems to work better on smaller walleyes than the bigger ones, but I have taken some bigguns on it too. A prespawn male that slurped up a hot pink 3 grub with a hot pink 1/8 oz. head. It was caught off Lincoln Beach in mid March of This color is also very effective on late fall fish when the water temps are dropping and the fish are slowing down. Another nice little male wallie taken on the same day as the picture above. This fish took a silver flecked chartreuse plastic on a hot orange head. This can be a deadly combo almost year round, especially in cold or murky water. In the early months of the year, and through the spawn, a chartreuse plastic with silver sparkles and a hot red, pink or orange head can be your most productive jig. It is a good combo for smaller males through the spawn and for the bigger females after the spawn. Strangely enough, the big post spawn females will often hit smaller plastics (in chartreuse and hot red) than at any other time of year. I guess it is because they are easing their way back into the feeding mode and like to start with smaller meals. Within a short time, however, you will be catching them on your largest plastics, marabou jigs and hard baits. Once they put on the feedbag in earnest, you almost can t use lures too large for them to attack. One of the last three points on fishing plastics is that you should carry an assortment of different sizes, colors and actions. Sizes and colors are easy. Finding plastics with just the right wiggle can make a difference and is not always easy.

15 I have tried twisters and swim baits from just about every manufacturer. I test them very carefully in the water, observing how busy the vibrating tails are at different retrieve or trolling speeds. Some barely wiggle while others almost whip the water to froth. There will be days when the fish want very little movement. Other days you will knock them dead with a heavy fluttering action tail. On still other days, they respond better to the know nothing action of a slowly retrieved tube jig. The next to last topic on fishing plastics is that you should learn how to rig, cast and retrieve tandem rigs two jigs at a time. This not only allows you to fish different colors, but sometimes aids in triggering strikes from fish that need a wake up call. A single jig cruising by might not create much interest. But, run a double rig through the water and it sometimes creates enough extra commotion to trigger a reaction bite. On the other hand, if the fish are spooky and finicky, you may have to scale back to fishing only a single well-presented plastic to avoid an unnatural appearance. The last point on plastics is that fishing for walleye is not a purist thing. You are not restricted to using unadulterated jigs. If you want to add a strip of crawler go head on. If you want to add some strips of fish meat, or a piece of minnow (or a whole one), then just do it. Sometimes a little bit of sweetener on a jig hook is all it takes to seal the deal. Also, adding a few drops of your favorite attractant can sometimes make a difference. I favor either shad or anchovy scent, but night crawler and crawdad can work well too. 15