By Jack Payne
The more that you fish the more that you understand some things never change. An example, consider the night crawler and its second cousin, the European crawler or better known as the Belgium worm.
More walleye are caught with a night crawler than all of the other baits added together. Looking to master walleye fishing? Then learn how to fish a crawler. Crawler harness rigs, slow death rigs and the split shot rigs produce tons of walleyes.
We fish in a walleye tournament each month across the state. Outside of the Detroit River most of the top ten teams will have crawlers in their mix. There are many types of rigs out there. Consider Stopper Lures, they have plain rigs, the have UV rigs, Pro Flash style rigs, Glow blade rigs, Big Willow Rigs, Floating Harness Rigs and the Flashwing Rig.
Most anglers grab the standard Colorado style rig but two other rigs can really work. The Flashwing Rig is similar to the spin glo rigs used out west on steelhead and walleye. This is a different style crawler rig that can be fished super slow and creates a unique turbulence in the water.
The Big Willow Rig uses willow blades that can be trolled at a higher rate of speed. One common denominator, they all use a crawler. A slow death rig normally uses a single hook and half of a crawler threaded up the hook to the knot. A special Death Hook that rotates wildly is most often used. The split shot rig is simply a split shot and a single hook. It might be a slow death hook or the standard hook.
Most rigs come with a bead configuration and multiple blade color. A mixture of blades and blade colors is suggested. Something with pink or purple works great on clear waters, something with flash or glitter in darker waters. UV rigs and glow rigs where great in dark or dingy water. Also pay attention to the back side of the blade, is it copper, silver or gold? Walleyes attack from the back, remember that. They see it coming and they follow it until they strike.
Purist bass anglers will cringe when I say this but trolling a crawler harness alongside of a good weedline or up and down a long point is deadly. When we target bass we use circle hooks on our rigs because 95% of the hooked fish will be in the corner of their mouth. Circle hooks are great when considering throwing back any species of fish.
Crawler Harness rigs can be fished on the bottom or for suspended fish. On many of our larger lakes you will find schools of walleye suspended out over deep waters. Adding an inline weight and using a depth and speed chart will show you exactly how much line to let out to reach a desired depth. The best speeds are .3 to .5 mph with the split shot rigs and up to 1.5mph with the various spinner rigs.
Panfish anglers, the fastest way to locate a nice pod of perch, bluegills or crappies is trolling. Rigs like the Action Spin Snells draw in panfish. For the perch and the gills add a large fat Belgium worm. Crappie anglers add some type of plastic action tail or a minnow.
Most of our local lakes have a much defined thermocline. We are finding the thermocline on most lakes in the 16-20 foot range. This means that the bulk of the fish will not be deeper down than this depth.
If you fish in deeper waters most of the fish will be at this level or higher up in the water column. Start out at the weed edge and work outward or look on your graph for suspended fish. The best speed for panfish, maybe .3mph up to 1 mph.
Trolling or drifting harness spinner rigs with a crawler or a worm is very productive. You cover water during your search mission, land multiple species and can be done by anyone. If you locate a pod of fish start making figure eight trolling passes and never pass up a windy day. Wind and spinners work great.
