Bottom bouncing rigs for walleye

There are so many ways to fish bottom bouncers, making it one of the most versatile tactics for walleyes and other species. The 3 simple reasons I use bottom bouncers for walleyes are:. I mean, bottom bouncing rigs for walleye, all you have to do really is hook up a bait rig to the bottom bouncer and go. But is it really that simple???

Bottom Bouncer walleyes is often a slam dunk for summertime walleyes. We reached out to Tony Roach, one of the best walleye guides out there, and asked him a few questions about how he approaches bottom bouncing throughout the summer months. I tend to use a lot of nightcrawler, minnows, leeches, however, there are times when I actually prefer plastics. They work great when the walleyes are scattered through secondary breaklines, humps, deep weed edges, etc. They allow you to go from fish-to-fish-to-fish and really cover water quickly. Croix Eyecon rod Bounce-N-Troll.

Bottom bouncing rigs for walleye

Bottom bouncers have become a staple of the walleye fishing industry. The reason they are so popular is because they are easy to run, versatile, and just downright catch fish. This setup is so simple, yet it can have so many alterations for differing styles of fishing. I like to use a stouter rod when bottom bouncing. This is because I like to run bigger bottom bouncers and have a firm backbone when I set the hook. I favor a 6''0 medium-heavy rod with a fast- or moderate-action. The reason I favor these setups is because I still have a good feel for what is happening with my line, but I also have a firm backbone for setting the hook and fighting a fish. For reels, I favor a larger spool baitcasting reel. Line counters are not critical for bottom bouncing, but if you are fishing with someone that has not bottom bounced much, it helps to make sure that lines are set at the right depth. As far as line, I favor lb. Berkley Fireline. This is because it has no-stretch properties, which allows me to feel every pebble that the bouncer ticks across and also even the slightest of bites. It's also strong for reeling in larger fish, especially with the heavy bottom bouncer.

The reason they are so popular is because they are easy to run, versatile, and just downright catch fish. From the basic simple snell that has a single hook, you can experiment by adding a single bead or a handful of beads and a float. This makes it attractive, but doesn't steal the show.

One of the most consistent walleye presentations is a spinner-crawler rig spinner-crawler harness on a bottom-bouncer. Mainly a trolling or drifting tactic, many walleye anglers have used this technique before, but few have perfected it. For many years, bottom-bouncer fishing has been my primary method in my busy charter fishing business that operates mainly on Saginaw Bay and Lake Erie. Last year I pulled body-baits during early spring, but after the water temperature nudged into the high 40s, we fished bottom bouncers almost exclusively and caught limits on most trips. When all other programs were failing on other boats, we consistently caught walleyes, even during the toughest fishing conditions.

Fishing a bottom bouncer correctly means coordinating boat speed, lake depth and setting the rig accordingly. Photo by Ron Sinfelt. One of the most important abilities any walleye angler can possess is the ability to present all available presentations to walleyes as conditions dictate. In May and early June, live bait presentations start to play a larger role in angler success. Utilizing crawler harnesses with bottom bouncers is certainly in the top five of all productive presentations of any experienced walleye angler. However, many who have never run them might not know all that bottom bouncers have to offer. There is more to these rigs than meet the eye. The weight is positioned approximately a third of the way down on the wire extending an additional two-thirds of the wire downward below the weight. The initial reason for the design was it allowed anglers to get the bait down to the bottom in areas with bottom structure, such as large rocks, without getting snagged like a three-way rig often does.

Bottom bouncing rigs for walleye

A bottom bouncer rig for walleye is one of the most effective tools for catching walleye with trolling, and it can also be very effective when used from shore. Due to these key advantages, you can use bottom bouncers for walleye to cover a lot of ground while presenting your bait at exactly the right depth to entice walleye to bite. And this makes it one of the deadliest rigs to put large numbers of walleye in your boat during the open water season. A bottom bouncer is an L-shaped wire that has an oval weight in the middle of its long arm, and a snap swivel at the end of the short arm. You tie your main line to the notch in the corner of the L-shaped wire, and then attach your leader to the snap swivel. A bottom bouncing rig for walleye helps to keep your bait close to the bottom while trolling, while minimizing the chances of getting snagged on rocks or other cover due to the wire sticking downwards from the rig. And you also need to troll at the optimal speed in order for the bottom bouncer to make regular contact with the bottom of the lake, but without getting snagged refer to our chart below to choose the correct size. The first step is to tie your main line to the notch in the corner of the L shaped wire of the bottom bouncer.

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This allows me to let a little more line out from my front rods and the back rods stay right below the boat. The reason I favor these setups is because I still have a good feel for what is happening with my line, but I also have a firm backbone for setting the hook and fighting a fish. Share on linkedin. You can fish shallow or deep. This was all about laying the foundation for the basic bottom bouncing rig. The heavy leader is abrasion resistant when trolled over rocks, zebra mussels, and other rough substrates. Gold and silver are colors that I feel are pretty universal and baits I often have out when fishing a new body of water or if I just do not know what to do. Give a Gift Subscriber Services. Get Digital Access Not a Subscriber? The more weight used, the shorter the setbacks that are needed, which speeds up the setup process and also lessens tangles. Check it out. It catches fish! First is the technical aspect of fishing these rigs, which are somewhat awkward and prone to tangling. As you change depths, you can always let out more line or pick up line.

For the business end of a bottom bouncer, the most versatile and commonly used bait is a spinner rig also sometimes called a worm harness , consisting of a few beads, a rotating blade and one or more hooks. The beauty of these rigs is how they can be adapted to many situations by varying the length of line used, the number of hooks, the size, quantity and colour of beads and the colour, style and size of blades. As an added bonus, spinner rigs are well suited for using live bait, frozen minnows and artificials.

It worked back then and will work wonders still today. Often, we simply catch more fish with bottom bouncers by simply speeding up to cover water to find active fish and triggering fish. There are two applications where I prefer to use lighter weights: 1 fishing in weedbeds and, 2 fishing in waters shallower than 6 feet. And natural colors perform well. How I like to approach the rig early in the season is to have a size 2 to 4 Aberdeen or Octopus hook with a single 5 mm. When trolled fast, the pressure exerted against the clevis by a forward bead negatively effects the rotation of the spinner. Bottom Bouncer Fishing for Walleyes. Most spinners are tied with a five to six-foot snell but I often prefer to use a shorter three-foot snell when fishing around weeds or using slow death style hooks. Even when the wind died and the water went flat with bright sunshine, walleyes still kept biting aggressively. In-Fisherman's Thomas Allen shares a simple and inexpensive way to store your Aqua-Vu accessories for on-ice transport. February 21, What's the best bottom bouncer size? Not really.