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It's funny how a technique gets discovered and then gets refined and refined some more, and then before you know it, after all the refinements, we're right back where we started. That's what happened to live-bait rigging.A long snell is necessary in some waters with heavily-pressured fish. That's why a barrel-swival is necessary to keep the distance between the weight and the bait. A sinker stop knot or a rubber snubber just can't hold the bigger sinkers and they'll slip down to the hook and reduce the effectiveness of the rig.
In rocks you must incorporate a snagless sinker. Surprisingly a bottom bouncer works great. You can run one of these snagless sinkers over a big rock and shale and not get hung up. Another thing we are doing with the rigs today is keeping the weight rig off the bottom. Instead of letting that sinker dig a trough in the bottom we keep it a few inches off the bottom. The longer the snell compensates for the slight tug on the line when you release the line and the sinker drops to the bottom.
Line and specialty walleye rods have become factors in rigging. We spool up with Stren Easy Cast because with a live-bait rig when the fish takes the bait you feed them some line. The Easy Cast is so memory free that it just glides off the spool and through the eyes on the rod. You don't want that walleye to spit the bait when they feel a little pull from the line getting stuck in the eye on a rod.
We are often asked if a rig works well in shallow water. Rigging is a great option in shallow water and there is one rigging option that people seldom use and we don't know why. Maybe it doesn't cost enough money, maybe it isn't high tech enough. What we're talking about is a small hook on the end of the line and a little round sinker about a foot up, call a split-shot. It's the simplest rig we've ever used. Even novice fisherman can be experts when they have this tool in there hand.
What you do is tip the hook with bait and cast it into a foot or two of water. Let it set for 15 seconds, take five feet of line and let it set some more. This rig fishes itself. One afternoon we were out fishing and caught 100 walleyes between one and eight pounds with this rig. Caught a fish on every cast. The key is to remember to let it sit for up to 15 seconds without doing anything. Reel it in five feet and let it sit again.
Picking a rod for rigging means something long and with a softer tip. Our favorite rigging rod is the Zebco Tour Edition seven footer because it allows for the slightest inclination of a bite. When a walleye hits you feed them some line, set the bail, reel in line until you feel the fish, and you should have a little arc in that rod tip. When you get the bend on the tip don't set the hook, just start reeling. If you set the hook, you could rip the small hook right out of the fish's mouth. Just reel them in and net them.
Live-bait rigging is the perfect finesse techniques for finicky walleyes. And once again the rig has proven what goes around comes around.