Jig Fishing For Walleye

When it comes to jigs, Versatility is the key for walleye fishing.

The amount of ways you can work a jig are endless. You can work em slow, you can work em fast. You can use em with live bait or without. You can cast em or work em vertical. To maximize the effectiveness of the jig, you must be versatile. Versatility is the key to success. There are many, many ways to fish jigs. So don't get in a one way rut. Add new methods to your jigging arsenal and catch more fish

For starters,

The most basic retrieve for jigging is lift then fall. The lift is the attraction, the fall is the trigger. Always keep this point in mind when jig fishing. Walleyes most always hit jigs on the way down, not the way up. Don't be afraid to vary the speed of your retrieves. Try fast, try slow, and then try in between. Play around with the retrieve

Active fish,

I am going to look more indepth at one of the methods. It is casting action tails.
One thing to try is tipping your jigs with action plastics. Fuzzy grubs, shads, vibra tails, beaver tails, and double curly tails (especially good for slower presentations) are just some that work good. I use tipping plastics for live bait presentations. A little scent squirted on the plastic works great in cold water.

Action tails are great for locating active fish. Here's how. Use 8-10 pound test line on a medium stiff spinning rod and rig a 3/8 oz. barbed jig with an action tail. Three inches is ideal, shorter is good in colder waters, below 50 degrees. Cast to points, sunken islands, rock reefs, and weed edges. When the jig hits bottom, sweep the rod forward two feet (the attraction), and then let the jig settle back to the bottom (the trigger). Then sweep forward again and let it settle. All the way back to the boat This is a relatively fast approach, we're looking for active fish. Sassy shads, beaver tails, and double twister tails work very well for this approach.

Don't spend to much time on any one spot. Keep moving until you find fish. After the action starts to slow, try dropping back to an 1/8 oz jig, and then to a 1/16 oz. before moving on. This will allow you to take more fish from the spot.

Also make color changes as well. Mix colors, giv'em more choices. Don't hesitate to experiment. You never know with walleyes. Be versatile, silver shad on a blue jig. This sort of thing. Pink and white is good in the spring. Brown body on orange jig as the water warms. Try all sorts of color combos.