How to Tie up Your Own Rigs - Tangle Tamers
We’ll just state the obvious. Fishing for walleye is just plain fun. Thrilling and fast-paced, catching walleye means an angler has to be quick-thinking when it comes to fishing this predator. That’s why we asked walleye expert, Dale Gilbert, to share his extensive walleye knowledge with us. A walleye master, Dale, has fished walleye from Arkansas to Canada and Michigan to Montana, and he doesn’t disappoint.
There is an unlimited variety of things you can tie up and tying up your own rigs for walleye can be done anytime -like in spring when you’re getting your setup ready. Watch and learn as walleye master, Dale Gilbert, shares his best tips for how to tie up your own rigs.
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Video Transcription
Tying up Your Own Rigs
Hey folks. We're going to talk here a little bit about tying up your own rigs for fishing for Walleye. I've actually going to show you how to tie up two different systems I really like to use. And one of the things that's kind of fun about this, is you can do this all winter long when there's ice out there and it's too cold to get out on the water. Get things set up and get ready for the spring when it comes, which we're really short to, close to here right now.
Spinnerbait Setup
What I've got here is actually the spinnerbait setup that I get ready for the season. And you can kind of see here, there's almost an unlimited variety of the kind of things that you can tie up. These are Walleye pops here. These are Mack's Lure smile blades with floats. Like I said, there's really no limit to whatever your imagination really wants to do. Here are some Phelps floaters on rigs, different colors. These are some slow death rigs right here. It's limitless as to what you can do. And it's really kind of fun to do this.
Slow Death Hook Rig
So I got two basic rigs that I generally like to set up, and I'm going to go through and show you how I do those. The first one is actually going to be using a slow death hook. And you can see from here that hook's got kind of a funny little kinky bend to it, but it works really, really well. You can actually rig up these slow death rigs like this with just a bead and just the hook. You can also use this with the spinners. And I use a lot of the Mack's Lure product, these little mylar blades that are from Mack's Lure, have quite a variety of different colors and combinations you can put together.
So that's my first one here is basically to start out with is I start out with maybe a four, or about a five foot length of line, of leader. And in this case, I generally use this Berkeley Trilene at 17 pound test. You can also use the Berkeley Fluorocarbon 15 pound test. I like to use a fairly heavy line for leader material because you got that spinner working on that line all the time. And this isn't a finesse presentation for fishing. It's basically if you're trolling anywhere from 0.8 to 1.5 mile an hour from the boat, and the fish are reacting to the action of these baits.
Have Multiple Options
So what I start out with, and if I'm going to do the slow death hook, the single hook like this, I'll take this line and I actually tie a Palomar knot. And this is where you have multiple options. Now what I do with these rigs here, so I'll take a little fluorescent bead. In this case, I'm using a fluorescent green one, and I'll stick that on first. And then I really like to use the little pill floats like this. Stick that pill float on because it helps keeps this thing a little more buoyant. And then I'll take another fluorescent bead and stick on there. What I want to do is I want to get enough beads or float or whatever, so that when I put my blade on here, it keeps it away from the hook down here. So it's not affecting the hookups and the bites. So that's kind of this.
And then from there, if I'm using the Mack's Lure smile blades, I simply take a blade like this and just put the line right through the little hole in the center, and let it go down. And that basically can be one of your rigs, just like this. On the other end of the leader here, or the Snell that I'm using, I'll take a little barrel swivel and again, tie that on with a Palomar knot. And that right there actually makes a rig that's going to catch some pretty nice fish right there. And that's with a slow death hook, a single hook.
Tackle Tamer
The next one I'm going to show you here is actually a two hook harness. But that's one of the really great ways to set these up. Now, the other thing that I do is I use the little tackle tamers here. And once I've got the rig tied up, I'll stick the hook into this tackle tamer, and I'll just wind it up so it's nice and neat and organized, and I can put it away and it makes for a pretty nice system. So just put the tackle tamer on the tackle tamer, and then wind up the line like so.
The other one I really like to do is very similar, but it allows you to use actual spinners. So if you'll see here, sometimes I'll use things like this, which is a little hatchet blade, a silver hatchet blade. It's sometimes been extremely effective. This right here is a Northland Colorado spinner. And there's various sizes. Like I said, you can experiment with all this stuff. This again is another little Northland, number three, Colorado spinner. You can also tie these up with little Phelps floater sometimes.
Two Hook Harness for a Quick Change
This set up that I'm going to do here now, again, we'll take about a five foots leader here. And this is a two hook harness, and it's also a quick change system. So the two hook harness, what I'll do is I'll tie a Snell hook. So here I use a number two, like a Mustad hook like this. We put the line through the eye of the hook and basically hang on to it right along the shank. And then basically wrap about eight or 10 wraps back as tight as I can. Three. Let's see, I got there's one, two, three, there four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. And then just holding that there, I'll grab the other end of the leader, pull it up back through the eye of that hook and then just pull this whole thing up. And that creates a Snell hook right there.
Now, what I like with this system is it makes it really, really easy to make it a two hook harness because then I just grab my other end and grab my other hook, run the line through the eye of the hook like so. And I can move this hook down and I can space this hook wherever I want it. So if I put maybe about a three to four inch spacing between my hooks, depending on the baits that I'm using, but I'll set them up something similar to like this.
So I get that where I want it, maybe three to four inches, and do the same thing. Just taking that line and wrap it around the shank of that hook about eight times. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, maybe even 10 times then grab my tag end of the leader that I'm using, or the Snell I'm using. Put it back through the eye of that hook so it's headed out towards where I'm going to tie up to my bottom bouncer and pull that up. And what's that what that makes it is a real nice two hook harness that both those hooks are on there pretty nice and they're spaced apart a little ways. Works really well.
Now the same thing applies here is what we did with the smile blade is we want to keep some separation between those hooks and whatever I'm putting on there. So in this case, I'm taking a little orange bead, slide that on. If you use beads, you can use four or five beads. Again, I still kind of like these pill floats like this, just to give a little extra buoyancy, a little weight to make them not fall quite so quick to the bottom and get snagged up. Put that pill float on, put another bead on.
Quick Change Clevis
And then in this case, I've got here, what's called a quick change clevis. It's a little bit hard to see here, but basically it goes on the line, but it's got this little clinch clip thing here that you can actually put different spinners on. So you can actually change these out. So this slides on the line like this, with that little D kind of a split ring thing there. Goes down to my bait. And then from that point, again, I would take a barrel swivel on the other end, tie this on with a Palomar knot.
Besides making it easy to change these things out to swap, to see what color or what preference the Walleyes might really have, it actually helps reduce some of the line twist. Even though on most of bottom bouncers, they actually have a snap and a swivel there. This just kind of creates like two swivels. So again, it really helps eliminate the line twist and stuff, because you've got this spinner going back there all the time. Or even the slow death rigs where they're twisting all the time. And you want to keep as much of that line twist out as you can.
Take Whatever Blade You Want to Use
So this is my basic rig. You know, this again would be a quick change thing. And a lot of times I would just wrap this up and put this in. So I keep an assortment of blades in one of the boxes. But the nice thing about this is with this system, you can take whatever blade that you want to use and clip it onto that quick change clevis, just like this, and have a real nice rig. With in this case, if depending on if the fish were biting and what they're feeding on.
A lot of times I'll use things like this hatchet blade that's silver if they've been feeding on shiners or minnows, whatever. That little hatchet blade sometimes can be really good. Sometimes even going to a small size little, this was an Indiana spinner here, but it makes it real easy to just swap things out and give fish again, the option.
Let the Fish Tell You What They Like
That's one of the things about Walleye fishing is basically you let the fish tell you what they like. You experiment a little bit, you'd be amazed at what I've seen over the years, fishing different places at different times where something as subtle as even the change in the size of that blade can make a big difference between getting bit and not getting bit. So don't be afraid to experiment. This system here works really well because it gives you the option to do that pretty easily, and changing those things out. Hope to see you out there fishing, and putting a few fish on the table and having a great time enjoying the outdoors with your friends and family.
If you've got any questions or need any further information, just stop by any of the North 40 Outfitters stores, or check the website at northforty.com. Thanks for watching and hope to see you again. Thanks.