One of my favorite techniques for catching “Ottawa River” walleye is bouncing a jig off the bottom. Usually, for the first few weeks of the season, an assortment of jigs is all you’ll need for success. My preference is just plain round jigs normally 1/4 or 3/8oz for heavier current conditions. My go-to colour for this historic river is without a doubt “Orange”! Chartreuse is also a good choice but at least 90% of my success over the years can be attributed to this unrivaled preference.
From season opener through till the cool waters of fall this technique probably produces more fish than any other method.
My jig fishing though can be broken down into a few different techniques.
- Casting and retrieving with a jig/grub combination varying retrieval speeds if necessary as well as stopping and letting your presentation sink to bottom every few feet, often triggers strikes.
- Adding a spinner blade to your jig and casting or trolling also produces great results at times.
- My personal favorite though, along with many other walleye anglers is to hook a minnow on a plain jig head and bounce it off the bottom to trigger strikes from wary walleye.
The actual technique for hooking the minnow varies between anglers but I will discuss my personal methods for attaching bait in a later blog post.
Bouncing a jig off the bottom can also be coupled with casting your presentation to attract walleye that are within casting distance of you.
Cast your presentation, let it sink to the bottom then lift your rod tip retrieving your slackline slowly, let sink back to the bottom, and repeat the process until you have completely retrieved your offering.
This technique along with just bouncing your jig beneath you can be extremely effective especially if you’re using a rod with a sensitive rod tip. Walleye are known to bite very lightly at times and the more sensitive your rod tip the more chance you’ll have to recognize a strike, or if a wary walleye has possibly inhaled your offering.
I started using a system that even further increases the success rate of jig fishing.
Because I get a lot of my offerings stolen or stripped from my hooks I decided to increase my odds by attaching lead lines to my jigs whereby I have attached a second hook approximately 1ft above my jig giving me a second chance at walleye that manage to get a free meal from the first hook.
This also works well due to the fact walleye usually travel in schools with usually more than one walleye eyeing up your bait.
Another positive feature of this presentation is you don’t necessarily have to reel up and re-bait when you miss a strike because you have a second offering to maintain their interest.
I call these creations my “Jigging Harnesses”
Tie some for yourselves and give them a try, I’ll guarantee your success rate will increase.
If you don’t want to produce your own, Contact Me to try this practical innovation.
Until the next time,
Have Fun Fishin,
Dave
