Do Nothin' To Catch More and Bigger Walleye

So here we are in the “extra action” era…Slow Death hooks spinning our crawlers and Jointed Flicker Shads adding more shimmy to an already action-packed lure. Big vibrating paddle tail swimbaits on our jigs…If anglers don’t look closely, we could be convinced that the key to catching more walleye is to add more action…STOP!

Certainly there are days when more action is better than less action, but on the flip-side, there are also days when less action is a better choice…especially when big ‘eyes are the goal. And famously moody walleye attitudes aside, there are some reasons for this.

Schooled or podded walleyes tend to be more aggressive to try to outcompete their kin. Making your presentation more visible, more wiggly, more flashy, more vibrational, louder…these factors can all help make your offering easier for aggressive walleyes to home in on. And let’s face it, when the walleye get aggressive it’s a freakin’ blast!

Sometimes no school or pod of competitive “buddies” is needed. At times the fish just turn on with a vengeance…dawn, dusk, under the moon, when chowing on clouds of bait…whenever they are actively feeding, a touch of added action or attraction can boost your catch. There’s nothing more fun than being on the water when the walleyes go on a suicide bite.

But what about the oh-so-common times when walleyes just aren’t cooperating or are somehow a half-bubble off level? They’ll bite…sort of…if we hold our mouths just right or slow down or create the illusion of easy prey…natural bait on a plain hook has always been and still is a fine way to finesse temperamental ‘eyes onto our hooks. But just as there are modern methods to increase the action of our presentation, there are also modern tricks to tone it down a bit as well.

May not count as "modern," but back in the early '90's a group of us camped-in at Timber Creek on Fort Peck for 10 days...Wow, what an experience! We had great fishing at times, but we also worked hard to figure out a system for the slower times too. In the end, we found that a two-pronged approach with slip bobbers or small jigs with Do Nothing plastics drew bites from lethargic fish. The slip bobber game was simple enough...horizontal jig head with a medium leech and patience--the traditional live bait approach for off-bite walleyes. The jig game was a bit more involved. I had some bass plastics along on the trip and one of those baits had a "rat-tail" trailer about 5" long. I cut off 3-4 inch chunks of the chartreuse rat-tail plastic which we threaded on little eighth ounce swim jigs, added a small leech and started pitchin' points. Back then, fishing a jig without an action tail of some sort was practically sacrilege. But dadgum it worked! If you can't get a mental picture of "rat-tail plastic", just picture the last three inches of a rat's bare pink tail--straight as an arrow, scaly and just a little thinner than a nightcrawler. We caught walleyes, sauger, tremendous smallmouth and several other denizens of the deep. That was probably my first real serious venture into the Do Nothin' plastics game.

Back In the Day, We Had a Blast Learning How to Fish Fort Peck. My First Experience Getting Serious About Do Nothin' Plastics Was on Fort Peck. Here I'm Congratulating My Partner on Our Victory, Winning the Traveling Governor's Award at the Gov Cup in '88

Fast forward to today's understanding of Do Nothin' plastics. Let’s start with perhaps the best-known Do Nothin’ lure of recent years, the Berkley Gulp Minnow. No wiggly tail, no extra glitter, minimal vibration. I expect if you are bothering to read this article, you’ve probably had some great days baiting jigs or drop-shot rigs with Gulp Minnows—they work! Hell, I’ve even watched my neighbors use ‘em with bottom bouncers and floater rigs so they didn’t have to rebait when working a school of easy eaters (OK fine, I admit it…I joined in and drug Gulp Minnows behind bouncers just to fit in with my neighbors. And I’ll confess—it was fun!).

Do Nothin' Gulp Minnow on a Jig Pays Off on Hot July 5 Walleye

So I’m sure we can all agree, Do Nothin’ action-free Gulp Minnows work fantastically well, and not just on lethargic fish. So what about other Do Nothin’ approaches? Most of us pretty much stopped at the Gulp Minnow lesson and haven’t gone beyond…well, as the nutty experimental guy I am, I had to start overthinking the whole process.

Take a look into the world of bass angling…TRD presentations for smallmouth are essentially a short "no action" piece of plastic that looks like, well, a turd. And last year’s national bass tournament on Lake Oahe in South Dakota was won with the Do Nothin’ TRD approach. Look at the Senko game of wacky rigging a plain no-action plastic worm. It’s been so successful that I’m not sure they even sell plastic worms with action tails anymore—kidding…just kidding. But the point is fairly obvious. At the same time we walleye anglers started turning to higher action baits, many in the bassin’ game toned it down and started “Doin’ Nothin’”.

In addition to Gulp Minnows, I started playing with other Do Nothin’ plastics. In the picture of the 29” walleye laying next to the measure board you’ll notice an eyed piece of plastic. That’s a soft plastic jerkbait for bass…The only action it has is what you impart yourself. I’ve started using this at times as an alternative to casting jigs…it sinks more slowly than a typical jig and with the shank-weighted hook, it falls horizontally rather than head first like a normal lead-head does. So it enhances the drop by slowing it down and staying horizontal…hummh, we’ve always been told the most important part of jigging is the drop. Well, then why not make the drop even better?

Soft Plastic Jerkbaits Are Designed for Bass, But Don't Tell This Big Walleye (June 9 Catch)

The first 10 hours of fishing time with soft plastic jerkbaits (a couple hours one day, a couple hours another day etc.), I caught 5 walleye over 5 pounds from 4 different spots. That’s enough to convince me it isn’t a fluke. But it’s not enough for me to change my whole walleye approach. I just factor it in as another option that works for nice fish and hadn’t been in my arsenal until the last couple years.

Now we certainly can't call the Flicker Shad crankbait a Do Nothin' lure, however, compared to the extra action of the newer jointed Flicker Shad, the old originals do seem pretty tame. Since the jointed version is so new, the jury is still out on how the catch rate compares to the lower-action standard Flicker Shad. But now you know my affinity for "less is more" so I'm betting we'll all buy a few jointed Flickers but in the end we'll continue to use and trust the original.

I'm pretty hooked on the Do Nothin' approach, but that's not to suggest you should ignore aggressive and high-action lures or plastics. I rather enjoy going aggressive for walleye. But what I really enjoy is catching oversized walleye which frequently leads me to Do Nothin’; and I encourage you to Do Nothin' too!