Terminal Tackle

Terminal Tackle -- What Works for Walleye
	Hi there. As you read these articles, keep in mind that it is not my intention to tell you how you should fish for any species. Here I will be sharing with you some things that work well for me and along the way, maybe you can share some things that work really well for you that will enhance our fishing experience.
To me, catching and eating walleye is better than going to the candy store. Also, there are about as many ways to catch walleye as there are ways of thinking about it. The type of terminal tackle arrangements, live and imitation baits and the variety of presentations that catch walleye are overwhelming. However, having tried a great many different ways to present a variety of baits to catch walleye, there is one method of presentation, rigging and bait that works really well for me.
I use a 3-way rig with a drop sinker and a 2-hook worm harness with one blade. The bait is a juicy dew worm. Worm harness often have 3 hooks hut I find that the 3rd hook is a nuisance and is not necessary.

Two hooks, a main hook and a trailer are all that you need. Put the main hook through the very tip of the head of the worm and the trailer through the collar. The important thing here is that the worm presents itself in a straight line and is not flopped over, kinked or buckled.

When looking for a worm harness, select one that is not overly gaudy and junked up with metal and blades. All you need is a simple harness made up of a few beads, one Colorado blade and 2 hooks. Although greens and oranges etc. are good, a gold blade with red beads is a good harness for all occasions.
I make my own harness. Most tackle stores have a variety of beads, blades, swivels etc. that will allow you to create exactly what you want. (a lot cheaper too!) I took a ready– made harness apart to see how it was put together and how the hooks were attached. This allowed me to cheaply create and experiment with a variety of colour combinations. If your creation isn’t working, go back to red and gold.
Again there are a great variety of ways to hook up a sinker system. I have used egg sinkers on the line, bottom bouncers, bell sinkers etc. but the following is a method that I like the best.
	I purchase 21/2 in. (63 mm) pencil sinkers which can easily be cut with pliers to the length that will give you the desired weight to get to the bottom in the water conditions where you are fishing. The surgical tubing can be purchased at a drugstore or a home healthcare store. Although nothing is totally snag proof, I find that this pencil sinker/surgical tubing combo rides nicely over bottom obstacles and is not clumsy or prone to tangle the line when retrieving a fish.
A bottom bouncer rides well over the bottom but is clumsy and unnecessarily heavy on the retrieve. A bell sinker on a drop line is prone to tangling and is easily snagged. Online sinkers (bell or egg) get the line down to the bottom well but I find that my rig gets snagged more often than I would like.

In the set-up as illustrated in the above pictures, I use a 3-way swivel, the drop sinker is 5 or 6 in. (125 to 152 mm) long and the distance from the sinker to the end of the worm harness is about 20 to 25 in. (500 to 640 mm).
Finally, I would like to suggest that a person should use a line strength that will not easily break considering the size of the fish that one is likely to catch, the amount of current or the nature of the obstacles that the line must endure. It might be fun to use super light rods, tackle and line to fight those whoppers but yards of broken line, heavy sinkers and hooks (worm harness, body baits, jigs, etc.) attached to fish that are not connected to a rod and reel is in my mind a totally unnecessary and cruel situation. Few anglers are skilled enough to catch really big fish especially in heavy current with really light tackle. “Believe It or Not!”
Next time I will talk about presentation and suggest a little tip on how to enhance the taste of your fish.
If you have a really neat idea or suggestion that you would like to share, send it to fishnfinn@cottagehaven.com and somewhere along the line I will try to work it into these presentations.
Until next time, remember that it is good to take what you can consume and consume what you take.