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Swift water Walleye techniques
Recently while fishing the In-Fisherman Professional Walleye Trail tournament in Trenton Michigan I had the opportunity to revisit a technique I had first done with J.R. Mazure two years earlier on the flooded Mississippi river out of Dubuque Iowa. The Technique is called hand-lining or sometimes wire-lining or chugging .I would like to take a few moments and discuss this technique, with also a couple of unique twists. Hand-lining is an age old technique that was originally done with old Victrola boxes that had a spring loaded mechanism used to hand wind the Victrola to keep the table turning. In the old days these were converted over to a basic spring loaded reel device that would automatically reel the wire back up to keep from getting tangled something similar to an electric light cord reel in theory. The devices used nowadays are manufactured by a couple of sources which I will give phone numbers at the end of this article. These devices are only meant to be take-up reels they are not strong enough just to reel the line, lures and weights back in to the reel and need to be hand fed in. The reels are spooled with preferably a nylon coated wire line 60 to 90 LB test in strength. The end of the wire line is tied to a trolling shank which can be purchased from three to 9 feet long. This Trolling shank is nothing but a heavier lead wire with clevises attached every 6 to 18” with a bead on the top and bottom of every clevise. And a heavy barrel swivel at each end. This allows you to set the height of the rigs and lines you are running at different heights to keep them off of the bottom. To the very bottom of the trolling shank you attach a large pencil weight anywhere from 6 ounces to 4 lbs. depending on the current and depth needed. The optimum angle the wire-line should be running from the side of the boat is no more than a 45 degree similar to the technique and angle used when using a bottom bouncer. Next you need to make up 20, 40 and sixty-foot leaders preferably out of minimum 16 to 20 test line. The reason for the heavy line is to fold one you will not be having the load take off of the line because there is no reel involved and 2 when letting line out and bringing it back in heavy line coils easily on the floor of the boat. These are to be rigged with a snap swivel on one end and snap on the other end then rolled onto to foam rollers and marked with the proper length on the side. We will not be attaching these to the shank until we are ready to drop them in the water but keep in mind the shorter one will be attached to the lowest clevise on the shank approximately 12 inches from the top of the pencil weight with the longer one to be attached one to two clevises higher up. The types of crank-baits we will want to be using range from jerk-baits, shallow diving crank-baits, pencil plugs. Rapalas, Thundersticks and Reef Runners. Do not use any deep diving cranks but floaters are good also. Trolling spinner rigs is also a possibility. Now its time to go fish When wire lining a few things need to be kept in mind.
For Information on Purchasing the above hand line reels contact A+S Reels, 313-671-6783, Kachman Reels 810-689-9000 or Riviera Downriggers. Please visit these site sponsors |
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