Weedless spinner trolling rigs allow anglers to troll softballs above weed tops and along edges, efficiently covering water to locate active biters while using speed, flash, vibration and action to trigger strikes.
Anglers looking to target walleye in expansive weed beds can often find themselves in a difficult situation. Common walleye presentations like jigs and live bait rigs tend to produce more snags than bites, while slow finesse presentations like slip bobbers limit search capabilities. Fortunately, spinners provide an efficient and effective solution for walleye trolling success.
Sinner Trolling The Right Structure
The spot we’re fishing on right now is really a massive weed flat. The whole back end of this Bay is covered with weeds anywhere from four foot to about twelve foot. What we’re doing is snake trolling anywhere from about eight to about ten foot of water, sort of sneaking the over the deeper developing we judges.
Realistically, this concept of above power fishing and even what we’re doing here could apply to a wide variety of different types of underwater structures. Experienced anglers frequently believe that expansive weed beds are the same throughout and that locating fish is much like finding proverbial needles in acres of look-alike haystack. Most of the time, however, weed beds very in depth in thickness and have open lanes, pockets, and edges where active walleyes prowl in search of food.
Spinner Trolling
Your job is to find these areas and convince the walleyes using them to bite. Now adding to your challenge, common walleye presentations like jigs and live bait rigs tend to produce more snags than bites, while slow finesse presentations like slip bobbers limit your search capabilities.
At rolling speeds of about one mile per hour, spinners provide everything you need for walleye trolling success. A quarter-ounce bullet sinker is used to slither a VMC Revolution Cracked Ice Spinner above them between weed stocks at the desired depth and trolling speed. If we need it to fish a little deeper or faster, we’d switch to a slightly heavier 5/16 or 3/8 ounce bullet sinker or use a slightly smaller blade that runs deeper due to less water resistance.
A few weeks from now, once the wheat tops have grown higher near the surface, we might need to switch to a mere split shot or two to run our spinners through the narrow band of open water between the surface and the weeds, or we’d simply pop in a bigger blade for more water resistance which would make the spinner rig run higher near the surface.
Fine-Tuning for Success
As always, fine-tuning the combination of correct line length, proper sinker shape and weight, blade shape, size and color pattern, and precise trolling speed enhance the spinner trolling success.
Conclusion
Spinner trolling is an effective and efficient way to target walleye in expansive weed beds. Experienced anglers need to be aware of the different structures and depths of the weed beds, as well as the different presentations that can be used to target walleye. By fine-tuning the combination of line length, sinker shape and weight, blade shape, size and color pattern, and trolling speed, anglers can maximize their chances of success.
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