Spinners are incredible tools for catching walleyes and this presentation in some form offers the angler a surprising amount of versatility. For many anglers, spinner harnesses are used in conjunction with bottom bouncers. This presentation is extremely versatile and effective but bottom bouncers aren’t the only method for presenting spinners. From open water trolling on the Great Lakes to precise tight quarter tactics that probe weed edges on small natural lakes… spinners should be an important tool for walleye anglers to consider at some point each season.

Spinners offer the angler the advantage of great latitudes of speed in the sense that you can productively fish anywhere from half a mile per hour to almost two miles per hour or more. To get the spinner blade to turn at the slower end of the spectrum, use a metal clevis instead of the plastic quick clip variety along with using rounder cupped blades (Colorado). Smaller blades also seem to turn easier at slower speeds than larger blades. At a faster pace, long willow leaf shaped blades tend to handle increases in speed better and it also seems to help if the snell itself is tied with heavier line as the heavier line has less of a tendency to twist at higher speeds. Tipping options vary with night crawlers probably being the most popular bait for tipping but night crawlers are not the only option. Leeches work well behind a spinner but generally won’t handle as much speed as a crawler. When using leeches on spinner harnesses, what works well for me is lightly stepping on the leech with my foot to kill the leech and hooking the leech through the nose (narrow end). This keeps the leech from spinning so much and twisting around the hook. Minnows also work well at times as well… again hooking the minnow through the head so that the minnow doesn’t spin out of control at faster speeds.

Another tipping option that has really begun to catch on in the past few years is Berkley Gulp! I have had a lot of success with Gulp! particularly the leeches and crawlers especially late to mid summer when pulling harnesses at speeds of one mile per hour or more. Whatever you tip with, just make sure to watch the harness next to the boat to make sure that the bait or Gulp! is flowing naturally behind the spinner to prevent extra line twist and also, from my own experiences it seems like bait that isn’t spinning just seems to catch more fish. What also works well in many applications is to use as heavy of line as possible in the sense that heavier line tends to track through the water better with less twisting. Many anglers tie spinner harnesses with ten to twenty pound monofilament.

Tactics for presenting spinners varies across the walleye belt. On the massive reservoirs located on the Missouri River System in the Dakotas, bottom bouncers originated several years ago and in many areas, a bottom bouncer is a very common and effective way to present spinners to walleyes. The key to the bottom bouncer’s success is again versatility. Bottom bouncers can be fished below the boat or behind the boat. Bottom bouncers are fairly snag resistant and follow the contour of the bottom extremely well. Bottom bouncers also telegraph the bottom very well so that an angler can get a more intimate understanding of the lake bottom. Anglers can use bottom bouncers to troll expansive flats with a more horizontal presentation back behind the boat or even behind planer boards but this same piece of equipment is versatile enough to fish near vertically with precision to probe corners and break lines in tight quarters.

Anglers trolling spinners for suspended fish might incorporate bottom bouncers but often, large split shot or trolling weights are used to position the spinners at different depths through out the water column. Bigger water often calls for much larger blades.

Also, many anglers are quick to put a new fresh crawler on after getting nipped short but if the fish are hitting short, you might be surprised how well half a crawler works. On a harness, just let the back hook hang free when using half a crawler unless debris on the bottom is an issue for snagging.

Spinner harnesses in some capacity or another work well on rivers, reservoirs, natural lakes and the big water of the Great Lakes. Different regions often require specific adaptations as using spinners on the Great Lakes is a much different program than using this presentation on a small natural lake but regardless of region, this presentation is so adaptable. The bottom line is that this presentation is also extremely effective and easy to use.