When you are fishing on these real clear water lakes like we have up here in Northern Minnesota, springtime hair jigs can be an absolute killer for walleyes. However, they also work great for largemouth and smallmouth bass, northern pike, panfish.
Springtime Hair Jigs Walleye
New this year to the hair jig market is the VMC Moontail jig. It was designed for walleyes and it comes in a wide variety of colors and sizes.
The VMC Moontail jig has a minnow like profile and when it is fished correctly, it often out-fishes live bait.
The real key to fishing hair jigs for springtime walleye is the aggressiveness in which you do it. These fish are in shallow water, that is often less than fifteen feet deep and sometimes as shallow as one or two feet depending on the lake.
These spring walleyes can be that shallow on both clam and sunny days so don’t be afraid to start searching in shallow water off of main lake points.
Long casts are necessary to prevent the boat from spooking the fish.
Because you aren’t using live bait, you have to fish it fast and it helps to use a heavier jig size than you would use if you were using live bait. The heavier jig size allows the bait to fall faster, causing some reactionary strikes. The nice thing about springtime hair jigs for walleye is that you can’t really over fish it.
The harder you snap, the better the bite is. It is possible to catch walleyes fishing slow, but generally for the best results you’ll want to snap jig it aggressively.
It is that hard rip up and then fast fall that triggers fish.