I truly believe jigging for walleye is the missing piece of the puzzle for you the angler to catch walleye on a much more consistent basis day in and day out….not only more fish, but bigger fish as well that we all love when it happens!
Now with that being said, the only problem with this particular technique (jigging is very much an art) is it takes most anglers years to master so one finally has enough confidence to properly execute this more difficult way of catching fish and if you don’t pay attention to details….you may never really be able to use this method to your advantage! What I’ve learned over all my years in this business, is finesse fishing will typically help you boat much bigger fish whether you’re targeting walleye or smallmouth bass! Now this may apply to other fish that swim the Great Lakes, but seeing I only target these 2 fish open water leaves me only to share what I know about and that’s with the walleye & smallmouth bass.
Why I believe this is such an amazing technique (the missing puzzle piece) is it works extremely well with all particular weather patterns where other techniques we use for targeting walleye can be very much more weather dependent than jigging is. Now I’m going to share my “TODAY’S FISHING TIP” which I feel many unfortunately will look the other way with and it has to do with a very important detail which just gets seriously overlooked, and I call it “P-R-O-P-E-R L-I-N-E M-A-N-A-G-E-M-E-N-T!” This one unless you see it first hand unfortunately you just don’t understand and will think the line you’ve been using works just fine and will never see how this little change in how you fish will make things so much easier for you to have better hooksets, less snags, many more fish at the end of the day and bigger ones! You will immediately Fish with much more confidence and instantly elevate your walleye jigging abilities! When jigging it’s “IMPERATIVE” to be able to evaluate everything that’s going on 100 percent of the time and having as straight of a line to your jig as you can possibly have for the conditions you’re dealing with for that day, hour or minute while you’re jigging walleye is an absolute must to become a better jig fisherman! Last week we had our first of 2 spring walleye schools which I’ve been running now for 24 years where we go over all the proper ways to execute the jigging techniques along with my very particular jigging cadence which will immediately elevate anyone’s walleye jigging game as well! But it all starts with the fishing line you’ve chosen, and trust me….all fishing lines are not the same and this has nothing to do with a sponsorship. For those of you that know me, you know I tell it the way it is speaking from my heart and don’t sugar coat anything when it comes to helping others become better anglers which I’ve taken very seriously my entire career! So by simply using the correct line for the task, is where most are struggling and this is why you put the boat on the trailer with little success most days or worst yet….no fish at all!
So last week we had a couple of the guys attending our school using 10lb Power Pro line and this is what they’ve been using now for many many of years, and keep in mind I’m not picking on one particular line…just sharing what happened so you might see how important Line Choice can actually be. These two individuals I’d consider accomplished anglers who fish pretty regularly and they’ve always struggled with their jigging and always have done considerable better trolling…trolling was their go to tactic when it came to targetingwalleye anywhere in the Midwest! So I finally got them to break away from their primary line choice switching to the line I found and when they came back Saturday for our Q & A (question answer) portion of the school…they were all smiles after boating around 16 walleye using something they’ve never had luck with in the past and one of those fish being over 30 inches! So Berkley Fishing makes a line which is the line I’m talking about and this line is BERKLEY’S FireLine in 6lb test which has a 2lb diameter, and it’s the diameter of this line which makes this line the “HOLY GRAIL! of lines for proper “LINE MANAGEMENT!” What this 2lb diameter does for you and how this instantaneously elevates your jigging game is….cuts the wind leaving you little bow in the line along with cutting through the currents we have to fight many of times leaving you a much straighter line to your jig giving you the angler an distinct advantage to what’s going on with your jig! You also want to go with a high visibility line here like..crystal which is a white or the flame green which enables you to see bottom contact immediately allowing you better jig management leaving you skipping the jig along the bottom leading you to almost zero snags. Otherwise not seeing the initial bottom contact allows the bait of choice to drop down into the zebra muscles or rock which is why you are the one snagging throughout the day. The other advantage to seeing the line 100 percent of the time. Is when you see the line jump on the traditional walleye bit where he flares his gills sucking in a volume of water which leads the jig to hit the back of his mouth which creates that tic bite we all love….is when you see this happen versus felling it gives you the angler better hook-ups because you’re ahead of the curve here which leads to lots less fish lost on the way in or just plan missed! So by using the proper line, this will give you what I call….PROPER LINE MANAGEMENT elevating your ability to properly execute the walleye jigging technique!