Do Nothin' for Livescope, Active Target and Mega Live: Changes You Must Make to Fish with Forward Scanning Sonar
Now that forward scanning live-action sonar is becoming the norm for serious walleye anglers, you need to know that you will never fish the same again. And what I mean by that is the goal of your fishing is no longer what it was before you got the new killer sonar. That’s right, your entire approach, your perspective, your goal is not what it was before live-action.
In the past, walleye fishing was mostly a MOVING BAIT game. Sure, bank anglers still-fished, and bobber anglers fished stationary live bait. And you could even loosely define vertical jigging as a non-moving presentation (though typically, the boat drags the jig around quite a lot), but most walleye techniques involve(d) MOVING BAITS. Sure, that’s obvious with trolling, bottom-bouncing, and live bait rigging. But that’s also true for casting jigs or other lures. When you cast a jig, traditionally the game has been to work the jig back to the boat. Maybe slowly, maybe rapidly, but that jig gets retrieved and recast a bizillion times a day. Doesn’t matter if it’s a tiny finesse jig getting soft short jig strokes or a mega glide-bait weighing over an ounce that you rip with three-foot sword swipes. Those are all MOVING BAIT methods.
Well, bass anglers have for years divided their presentations into categories of MOVING and NON-MOVING techniques. And as much as we walleye anglers can’t stand having anything to do with bass techniques, it’s time we start understanding the NON-MOVING methods that are so common in the bassin’ world. Here’s the deal, even without live sonar, bass anglers often cast to “targets” like a pockets in the weeds, sunken brush, a stick-up, rockpiles and under docks to name just a few. Many of the methods bassers use to work those “targets” involve NON-MOVING approaches.
For example, shaky head jigs are designed to be shaken in place. NED rigging encourages deadsticking or otherwise slow motion retrieve. Drop shotting involves dropping into prime fishing “targets” and wiggling your bait. Wacky rigging and the offshoot Neko rigging soft plastic stickbaits provides a way to deadstick or twitch plastics with a minimum of actual movement back to the boat. And these “normal” NON-MOVING methods make it easy for bass anglers to adapt to live-action sonar.
Nowadays with live-action forward-scanning sonar, all of us are fishing “targets.” It’s just that our modern targets are not stick-ups or rock piles but actual fish! Bassers are using their NON-MOVING methods to work the bass they see on their screens. And what do we walleye chasers do? Most of us spot the walleyes onscreen and then cast and retrieve past them—MOVING our baits past the fish hoping one snaps. Sure, we are all learning to be better at power corking to scan fish and drop slip bobbers on them but to grossly overgeneralize—walleye anglers don’t automatically convert to NON-MOVING approaches when we see fish onscreen. Well, it’s time for us to change!
A couple years ago, I wrote an article about using Do Nothin’ Baits…baits that have little or no built-in action. I talked about using soft plastic jerkbaits and NED rigs with TRD plastics and skinny “fluke” tails as an alternative to paddle tails or twisters. The article also discussed low action crankbaits with minimal diving lip as an alternative to hard divers with tons of action. The article was a bit of an introduction to the types of gear and methods that will excel as NON-MOVING presentations.
NED Rigs Adapted to Walleyes
My first experience with NED rig type plastics was 30 years ago at Ft. Peck Reservoir. I cut the “rat tail” leg off a plastic frog for bass fishing (see pic). That skinny little no action plastic “leg” on a light jig was killer during the heat of July on the big water. Back then we all baited most every jig—hadn’t learned to trust unbaited plastic yet. Still, I was ahead of the game by using do nothin’ plastics decades before it was common or popular. But I was MOVING that plastic way more than I do today. Jigging with NED heads and small do nothin’ plastics is custom made for casting to targets showing on the Livescope. Then instead of retrieving past the fish, we can deadstick or twitch or pop-n-pause in place right in the fish’s faces.
The picture with TRD style plastics walks you around a wheel. From the skinny little cut off frog leg counter-clockwise you see my current favorite NED-type jigging plastic. It’s the 3” YUM Dinger. I’m stuck on the skinny profile compared to the “real” TRD or other NED baits. I’ve generally had more success on skinnier plastics with walleyes. But I’ll be experimenting more with the thicker bodies the next couple years.
Continuing counter-clockwise you see the YUM NED Dinger. Super soft and has a hollow pocket in the tail that holds an air bubble to float the tail. Perfect for deadsticking and near deadsticking. Gives the stand-up jig effect regardless of the jig head you use. Though it’s a bit thicker than my past small plastics, this one will be getting time on my Livescope this year.
The next chunk of plastic on the plate is a Berkley Lil General. I adore Berkley’s scent and flavor profile, yet the under 3” bait is perhaps a bit short and thick to gain my full attention. I’m kind of a YUM fanboy (have been since the brand was called Riverside back in the ‘90’s and I caught my first 15 pound plus walleye using a Riverside 3” grub) so Berkley’s baits will have to really trigger the walleyes to get me off the YUM wagon. And though I have none in the pic, the original Z-Man TRD bodies come in killer colors, but like the Berkley baits they are a bit short and thick for my taste.
Bigger Do Nothin’ Plastics
It’s no secret that the 4” category of plastics has become “the big deal” for walleye—just look at all the YouTube footage with 4” paddles and flukes being used for bait. Four inchers are perhaps even more popular than the 3” sizes we all grew up using. If the idea is to fish this plastic as a NON-MOVING presentation for walleyes we pinpoint onscreen, there are some designs that outfish the MOVING style plastics.
In the picture with the red O-Ring tool for rigging wacky worms…let’s talk wacky for a minute. The super popular bass tactic of wacky rigging developed along with the wacky worm made famous by Gary Yamamoto. His 5” Senko stickbait has no action of its own and is about as plain as plastic gets. Bassers just go with green pumpkin color and use ‘em nationwide.
Though most of us are not afraid to upsize a bit, the 5” stickbaits like the Senko just seem a touch long for walleye. So beside that pictured red tool for installing O-Rings is my preference, the 4” YUM Dinger. Have to admit that this is one of my new experiments for the coming couple years. Rigged wacky with the hook in the middle secured through the O-Ring to keep from tearing the plastic this bait is fished alternately dead sticking and twitching or short stroking. Watch it in the shallows beside the boat…when you short stroke it, the bait bends in the middle then straightens out at the end of the stroke. It’s a “fold and straighten” cadence that’s a very interesting and lifelike look.
That small weedless wacky hook is the way bassers fish it in the weeds (and is the way I’m going to fish it in the weeds). For open water, the general consensus among the bass crowd is that a longer straight worm hook size 2/0 has stronger odds for hookups and keeping them hooked. Note that a wacky rig is fished weightless in most cases thus limiting it to the shallows where it’s perhaps the best bait in history for casting to pockets in the weeds.
For walleye fishing, we need options to get the wacky worm deeper. One is simple. Instead of the small weedless hook, you can use a traditional roundish jig head hooked through the O-Ring. You get the same “fold and straighten” lively action but with enough drop to get into more typical walleye depths.
What the bass crowd does for more depth is called Neko rigging and involves sticking a nail-shaped weight into the tail end of the plastic. The weight is fully hidden inside the thick stickbait. This causes the worm to drop straight down and stand straight up. So when you twitch or move it you get the “fold and straighten” lively action and then it drops actionless but vertical. In recent years the need for depth has lead to the development of nail weights with a round half-moon of lead or tungsten at the bottom end. This adds weight without affecting the profile of the straight worm. I can’t wait to play with this tactic!
Counter-clockwise from the O-Ring tool is MY FAVORITE WALLEYE PLASTIC--something I prefer over all other 4-5 inch baits. Like the Senko/Dinger type stickbaits it is a stickbait or more appropriately a jerkbait. Unfortunately, the YUM version with the huge painted yellow “perch eyes” was discontinued a couple years ago. I’ve been using it since it was a Riverside brand product in the ‘90’s and I love eyes on walleye baits. Good thing I found the outlet that got all the discontinued product from YUM. I bought almost 200 packages including every color, even the colors walleyes don’t like! Then last month that discount outlet shut the doors. That’s probably the end of the YUM Swurm, darn!
Fishing these soft jerkbaits on a shank-weighted worm hook has produced the best average size for walleyes of any lure I’ve ever used! And that’s saying a lot! Seems like mature adult walleyes are really attracted to it. Pretty sure I caught 10 fish on it before I ever got one under 24” and I expect every bite on these things to be an adult fish. Almost seems to eliminate those “12” rats” that are so common on the reservoirs near my home—almost.
You’ll note that those swim-bait hooks are actually weighted at the back end of the hook. This creates a backward glide on the drop, swimming away from your boat a little bit. That’s super important when trying to keep your bait in the fish zone where you see ‘em on your live-action sonar. Instead of just one or two jig strokes before you pass by the fish, with the hook weighted to the rear, you get extra time to let fish decide to hit. If you can’t find hooks like that, you can crimp on big split-shot or clam weights on any hook you prefer. It’s worth the effort to get perhaps double the time in the fish zone every cast. Not to mention the slow gliding drop that just screams, “eat me!”
The final baits in that picture are the OG soft plastic jerkbaits. Those are 3 and 4 inch Lunker City Slug-Go’s. Guessing there are more color choices of Slug-Go than any other 3 or 4 inch plastics. And here’s the kicker. Slug-Go’s when viewed with light shining on them have their reflective color that you see looking at ‘em in the bag. But backlit, most Slug-Go’s have a completely different killer color. Check out what happens when comparing front light and back light—WOW! I rig and use the 4” Slug-Go just like I use the discontinued YUM soft jerkbaits discussed above. The 3” Slug-Go is a jig dressing for me…or dropshot bait.
Spybait Supreme for Slowly Working the Fish You See on Live Action Sonar
The photo showing a few hardbaits may be opening a new can of worms for you? Those are Realis brand spybaits which have single-handedly added a totally new presentation method for finesse hardbait fishing. I highly recommend that you do an internet search on spybaiting and either read or watch a few articles (I like the In-Fisherman article to get a detailed overview). You may have watched the Johnston brothers on TV this year crushing massive smallmouth using spybaits with their Livescope sonars on the Great Lakes. Spybaits have produced some major wins for the Canadian brothers. I watched KVD cash a massive tourney check last year with spybaits as a major player in his presentation over the days of the tourney. And I’ll tell you right now…within the next couple years, you’ll see at least one major win on the walleye circuit with spybaits. It’s just too custom-fitted to the forward scanning sonar for people not to take advantage of it!
Spybaiting May Not Be Well-Known Yet, But Mark My Words--It Will Be Soon!
Spybaiting is the opposite of crankbaiting…Spybaits have no lip, don’t wiggle or shake (though they do have a sexy slow body roll) and aren’t designed to fish with much retrieve speed. They sink, so you determine the running depth by reeling at the speed the lure needs to follow bottom which is usually dirt-slow. I’ve tried other brands, but the props don’t spin as easily or consistently as the Realis baits. The Realis props spin when you blow softly at them, they rocket-spin in water. And they are pitched so that the two props spin opposite directions which assures the flash gets noticed.
Last Fall I Practiced Spybaiting Just Enough to Get a Feel for the Drop Speed and Retrieve Speed to Stay Within a Foot of Bottom etc. But I Didn't Actually Try Them on Fish. This Spring, the First Time I Livescoped a Walleye and Threw a Spybait to It--FISH ON! First Cast Success! Caught 7 or 8 Small 'Eyes to Get My Trust Up...and this Was in 36 Degree Water that Typically Would be Jigging Conditions. That Bait is a Realis Spinbait 72 Alpha Which is Shorter, Fatter and Heavier than Most Spybaits. Perfect for Walleye Depths!
The key to spybaiting for the bass pro’s tearing up the circuit is to fish ‘em on light fluorocarbon line—6 pound being the norm, with some folks running 4 pound, some clear up to 8 pound “cable.” From my initial learning, these baits work great in 10-20 feet of water. Shallower than that and I have to reel faster than I want to stay in my Livescope view with the fish. And that’s what I like about spybaits. I’m a hardbait lover but the speed of retrieve for most hardbaits is a bit extreme for working marks on the Livescope—except with spybaits. They are the slow retrieve alternative hardbait.
Walleye love spinney things like spinners, Smile Blades, Whistler Jigs, Slo-Death Hooks and SPYBAITS. The only negative to spybaiting is the cost…the Realis brand baits that dominate the industry run about $15 bucks a lure! Some other brands cost as much as $40 per lure! So if you are fishing an area with hammer-handle Northerns…with lures on 6 pound line…it’s pretty easy to rack up a $100 lure day—ouch!
Final Point
Though spybaits are minnow imitators that create a bridge between MOVING and NON-Moving presentations, they are the exception in this article. Notice that the plastics I’m advocating for NON-MOVING techniques are not colored as minnow imitators. Instead, those plastics tend toward drab and darker colors that mimic things like leeches, crayfish, worms, nymphs and other creatures. So instead of swimming a minnow-looking plastic past the fish with a MOVING bait tactic, the game is to let it stay tight to the fish marks on your screen looking like a bottom-related critter just hanging out waiting to be eaten.
So you’ve sprung for the bad-ass forward-looking live-action sonar. While others are splitting hairs about which system works better—Garmin, Lowrance or Humminbird. I’m going to recommend that you do your hair splitting on your new approach to catching fish targets on the screen. Our old MOVING BAIT approach is no longer going to be the best option. Sure, when the bite is blistering you can smoke a crankbait through the fish onscreen and they’ll paste it! But be honest with yourself. Aren’t most of your walleye trips more about triggering ‘eyes that are only sort of willing to bite? When that’s the case, NON-MOVING techniques will be the ticket. And yep, that’s outside most of our norms, but it’s going to be the type of fishing that will be evolving for all us walleye chasers the next few years—I promise!