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1/4 oz. and 1/8 oz. jig heads:
The color of the jig heads is not that important. The color of the rubber or bait you attach makes the difference. In the spring or at night, the walleyes are in shallow water so you would want to use a lighter jig like a 1/8 oz or even smaller. During the day or in the Summer when it's warm and sunny, the Walleyes go deeper so you may want to use a heavier jig like a 1/4 oz.
Twister Tails:
In the spring, the hot colors are white, bright yellow, bright red and black. As Spring turns into Summer, you will find that white and bright yellow slow down as the best colors. Black always works but you should try a dark smoky yellow or a transparent green as the water warms up.
Many people believe that bright colors work in the Spring because the Walleye are still in protection mode over their spawning grounds and that they hit your jig on the act of defending and not eating.
Worm Harness:
In the Summer when it gets hot out, many of the big trophy Walleyes go deep. In this case, you should try drifting really slowly in the deep water with a worm harness. To keep your worm harness off the bottom, many people use a three-way-swivel set-up which is used with Lake Trout techniques. Below is a diagram.
Rapalas or Thunder Sticks:
In the Spring, the best way to catch a big Walleye is to troll along the shoreline just before dark or at day-break with a Rapala or Thunder Stick. A 3 or 4 inch Original Floating Rapala or a Junior Thunder Stick with a little touch of liquid fish scent will bring in the big ones.
Rapalas and Thunder Sticks are also good in the summer. You can fish for those suspended deep water Walleyes or troll shallow along weed beds and drop-offs.
In the Spring the best colors are red, chartreuse, blue and most of all "Fire Tiger". As Spring turns into Summer, silver and brown pick up as the other colors die off. The one color combination that works all year is "Fire Tiger". It's probably the best color combination every created.
When The Walleyes Don't Bite
I use to guides for a fly-in lodge about 500 miles north of Lake of the Woods. Even though there were 200 Walleyes under the boat, sometimes they would not bite due to changes in atmospheric pressure, water levels or too much food like during the Mayfly hatch. Another guide by the name of Paddy Mekus never seemed to have problems catching Walleyes. He was an aboriginal man of Cree descent and born on the lake. He had a knack for catching Walleyes when they were not feeding.
He would put on really light line like 4 pound test. He would get a small 1/8 or 1/16 oz jig and put a small white twister tail on. Then he would let the jig sit on the bottom. Every 20 or 30 second, he would very gently jig the jig but only about 1 inch off bottom. If the bottom was rocks or gravel, he would just drag the jig a couple inches without rising it off the bottom. He would not retrieve the line. He would just let the jig sit there and move it a little bit once in a while just like it was a wounded bug on the bottom.
His jig would get covered with mud and weeds but that did not bother the Walleyes at all. The Walleyes would gently suck the jig in so you have to be really paying attention to any kind of action.
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