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River Walleye Techniquesby Kevin Patton Early season walleye fishing for Dan Vinovich often means fishing the Mississippi River from Dubuque, Iowa south to Keokuk. He recently shared his techniques with a seminar audience at the Central Illinois Boating and Fishing Show.
Vertical Jigging "The most important rod for walleye fishing is your jigging rod," said Vinovich. He uses a 7-foot Bass Pro Shops Walleye Angler Signature Series HM 85 rod matched with a Prolite ultralight baitcasting reel. The rod is lightweight, has a strong mid-section, a fast tip, and can be used for rigging as well as jigging, according to Vinovich. "Your number one enemy is line slack," said Vinovich, "and the seven-foot length helps take up slack and get a better hook-set." Many anglers use 1/8-ounce jigs or lighter for walleye fishing. Vinovich often uses 3/8-ounce or heavier, especially when fishing in current. "Fish heavy enough lead to fish your jig directly under the boat," he advised. "This keeps the bait on the bottom and helps you get a better hook-set." One bait he uses when jig fishing is a plain 3/8-ounce Northland short-shank jig to which he adds a three-inch flathead minnow. Another favorite is a hand-tied jig with tinsel added for flash and rattles for dirty water. Both jigs are thin, compact baits that fish well in river current. Pulling Another successful method for Vinovich is what he terms "pulling." It involves moving your boat upstream against the current using your trolling motor, while fishing a rod on both sides of the boat. For this technique, he switches to a Bass Pro Shops Signature Series 8-foot, 6-inch IM6 graphite rod. When pulling, he uses what is called a Wolf River rig or three-way rig.
One version of the rig consists of #7 three-way swivel, a 6 to 7-inch drop line to which he ties a 3/4 to 1-ounce jig (pink and blue with tinsel), followed by a three to four-foot leader on the back. The bait he often ties to the leader is a three-inch Bass Pro Shops floating minnow crankbait (blue, purple, and white) with a holographic finish. Vinovich uses a jig instead of a weight on his drop line because Illinois allows two hooks per rod. This gives him another bait in the water for walleyes to bite. He chooses the holographic finish on his bait for the extra flash it provides in clear water and advises against using jointed crankbaits in current. "This rig will keep the crankbait about four inches off the bottom due to the heavy jig in front of it." Vinovich uses a variety of other baits on this rig, such as tubes, jigs, and spoons. He also uses shiners, nightcrawlers, leeches, and minnows to tip his baits. "To quickly find out what fish want, each rod has a different rig." To avoid spending time running the outboard motor, Vinovich pulls against the current until he is ready to turn around and then fishes vertical jigs with the current back to the starting point. In addition, he pulls the boat in the figure of an "S" rather than a straight line. He feels that this maneuver covers more water and also provides varied presentations because the lures change speed when he turns the boat. Trolling
If fish are hitting crankbaits when pulling, Vinovich switches to a three-way trolling system, using the same rod that he uses to pull. The rig starts with a #7 three-way swivel. He adds 18 inches of drop line that leads to a snap-swivel with a weight attached. He then ties a crankbait to a seven-foot leader attached to the back of the swivel. Vinovich knows that you don't always need big baits to catch lunker walleyes. He noted that his biggest walleyes have come on two-inch baits. Other baits that he trolls with include Storm Thundersticks, Pro Shop XPS minnows, and Yozuri minnows. "Fish in current are on the bottom and this rig will keep the bait near the bottom, which is the strike zone of walleyes." His guideline for boat speed when trolling upstream against the current is between one and three miles per hour. The earlier in the season, the slower he trolls. He goes slow during pre-spawn, increases to a medium speed during the spawn, and then faster during post-spawn. Illinois anglers can use three rods each to troll, so to avoid becoming entangled with six rods out between him and his fishing partner, Vinovich uses three different weights and styles of sinkers. Each side of the boat has three rods. The two rods near the back of the boat are weighted with 1 1/2-ounce pencil weights. He uses 2 1/2-ounce bell sinkers on the two rods in the middle of the boat and 4-ounce pyramid-shaped sinkers on the rods in the front. By using three types of weights and six different models and colors of baits, he is able to present a variety of vibrations and actions to the fish. In addition, you can stagger the length of line out to the lures by varying the weight of the sinkers, with the heavy pyramid sinkers keeping the lures on the front rods closest to the boat. Vinovich added that you can use lead-core line as the weight system to get similar results. When he is fishing water that contains a lot of vegetation, Vinovich changes tactics to vertical jigging or pulling along the edges of weedlines instead of trolling with heavy weights. Local Prospects Vinovich mentioned several local prospects for walleye anglers, including Banner Marsh where he fishes Wheel Lake on a sunny day and prefers Shovel Lake when it is cloudy. He also likes to fish Snake Den Hollow when it is raining. Asian Carp are ruining the Illinois River for sauger fishing according to Vinovich, but saugeyes (walleye-sauger hybrid) are plentiful in Evergreen Lake if you can keep the yellow bass from stealing your bait. Dan Vinovich guides for other species, such as muskies at Spring Lake. To contact him for a guided fishing trip, call 309-347-1728 or email: trolling@mtco.com |
