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You've waited all winter for a chance to fish for walleye. You have
crankbaits, stickbaits, jigs, all kinds of plastics, torqued skindle rotors and
1/2 a dozen flibbermagibbons. But do you have the parts to make a deadly
3-way swivel rig? Well, if
you can survive the five knots that have to be tied to make a 3-way swivel rig,
you do indeed have some of the parts. Five knots? Here's a hint - take the
time to tie a bunch of these knots in your garage the night before.
 You see this little puppy to the left? It's the key to it all.
If you use one of these just once, it will keep you awake at night figuring out new ways
to use it - few tackle items are as versatile. They are perfect, allowing you to present bottom
hugging walleye with your favourite bait, be it alive or dead, balsa or plastic,
worm or fish. Now take a look at the next picture (scroll
down), the one
with all the baits in it.
See the sinker line? You'll want that to be less strong than your main
line and bait line. I like 6 lb mono. While the
rig does a pretty good job of running interference on snags, you are still gonna
get snags, and you may as well only lose a few sinkers instead of a seven dollar
rapala.
 See the bait line? Real good idea to use mono right here. It's less visible, and because you will likely be using less than three feet of
it, you can go with eight or 10 lb test and not worry about losing a big
walleye.
For the main line, there ain't nothing like 10 or 14 lb test
Fireline. I'm sure Fireline is much stronger than its ratings, and I never
worry about it snapping. Its thin diameter also helps keep the bait on the
bottom when drifting or trolling, and its sensitivity will transmit every bit of
bottom structure data into your hands, up your arms and into your head.
For walleye, that's important because you love to find the changes in structure. Check out the sinker. In the pic
I'm using a 3/8 oz black
bucktail jig as the weight - a great idea if you're not too concerned about
hanging up. A bucktail is perfect for getting the rig down there and
presenting fish with an option. When drifting for walleyes on rivers, I like using bucktails tipped
with a sweet little shiner. Sometimes I pull 3-ways
through weed clumps. Avoiding weed clumpage (that's what we call it) can be
drastically reduced by using three or four bullet sinkers in a line.
Go with a bell sinker when you have to go deep and weed clumpage is not a
factor.  The Bait -
What do you want to use at the end of the bait line? You can put just
about anything you like back there. I'm partial to live bait
for walleye, and for that reason, my favourite baits for 3-way rigging are spinner
minnow rigs and spinner crawler harnesses. I'll usually go with the minnow
early in the season, and when June rolls around begin trying the worm. You
know how deadly a floating rapala is when trolled? Well, when the sun gets
a little higher and the walleye go deeper, they will thank you for presenting
them with a floating rapala served up on the bottom.
Other uses - I use
3-way swivels for muskie fishing believe it or not, using a huge sucker or chub
minnow as the bait, and a stack of bullet sinkers on the sinker line. I
can drift or troll that rig slowly through 10 feet of water, the bullet sinkers
sliding through the clumps of weeds and the minnow riding/struggling above the weeds.
No clumpage!!! And if there were no hits in 10 feet, I'll make the next
pass at 15 feet, and then 20 feet. Doesn't make any difference, its
effective at any depth. And sometimes when I want to impart a jerking or
twitching motion on the bait, I just remove the sinker line from the 3-way
swivel and my bait remains just below the surface, jumping and darting, drawing
in the big boys.
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