Anyone use swim baits for walleyes in canoe country?

What baits do you like and how do you rig them? What weight to use depending on the depth?

Steady retrieve, vary?

I’ve always been twister tails or gulp on a jig and bounce it back. Catch fish, but always looking to improve. The post “Modern Techniques” and my recent experience using swim baits for crappies made me think I am underutilizing this technique. While fishing for crappies on Rathbun with small swim baits I caught 15-20 walleyes…but all by accident. I wonder if I knew how to target them better I could have caught more walleyes and use this more in canoe country.

Thanks for any suggestions or shared experiences you can provide.

T

I have recently stumbled upon swimbaits for Walleye and have had some really good success. I started fishing them during the spawning runs in Wisconsin here and there and decided to bring them up to the Boundary Waters. My brother and I took a trip a few years ago in May to target Walleye and our best bait was by far a paddletail swimbait.

We used mainly the authentex plastics, chartreuse orangecore in the paddletail version 3.25". Our best method was "dragging" the jigs. We would drift slowly with the wind or current around islands and rock bar structure in 6-15 FOW and pounded big Walleyes. We did some pitching and slow rolling them back to the boat as well. We tried the same method with a jig and a leech and the swimbaits outfished them atleast 4 to 1. We used 1/4 oz jigs the whole time. We would get hung up a fair amount but that was part of the deal.

We caught Walleye on skip bobbers and leeches too but the swimbait was the best producer on this trip. I would encourage you to give it a try.

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We did fairly well on walleye in Quetico with paddle tails last May/June timeframe. Didn’t catch crazy numbers, but got into a few good pockets and picked some up here and there as well. We mostly used 4” paddle tails (I used the Redbone color from Zman). This early June trip I’m bringing paddle tails closer to 3” as well, since I’ve heard those can be more productive in the early season.

We caught a LOT of nice smallmouth using paddle tails as well, including my personal best 22.5” smallie. Pike mixed in too, as usual.

Hi Tim,

Paddletail swimbaits have caught a lot of walleyes in your old boat! As far as fishing style- will toss right in the current and let the paddle work it’s magic. Often don’t need to go to the bottom in the current. Vertical jig on the edge of eddys. When fishing reefs or around islands will cast it toward shallower water and jig swim it back to the boat with good success

Last year the best paddle tail seemed to be the Impulse paddle minnow 3.5” in smelt color. I picked up 2 more packs at fleet farm today for $1.80/pack. All northland gear is 40% off this weekend there. Great luck with this bait all hours of the day in current and also on wind blown shore early evening.

Others we use with good success
Z Man TRD MinnowZ in The Deal and Smelt Colors (ten 22”+ fish caught on this setup on Crooked in 2021)
Z man diesel minnow (4”) - redbone
Storm 360 Searchbait 4” paddletail (pearl seems best for walleye)

I picked up some Kalin’s tickle tail paddletail baits this off-season. Really interested to see how they perform- will report back. Heading in on 5/27!

BWCAgoer: "Hi Tim,


Paddletail swimbaits have caught a lot of walleyes in your old boat! As far as fishing style- will toss right in the current and let the paddle work it’s magic. Often don’t need to go to the bottom in the current. Vertical jig on the edge of eddys. When fishing reefs or around islands will cast it toward shallower water and jig swim it back to the boat with good success


Last year the best paddle tail seemed to be the Impulse paddle minnow 3.5” in smelt color. I picked up 2 more packs at fleet farm today for $1.80/pack. All northland gear is 40% off this weekend there. Great luck with this bait all hours of the day in current and also on wind blown shore early evening.


Others we use with good success
Z Man TRD MinnowZ in The Deal and Smelt Colors (ten 22”+ fish caught on this setup on Crooked in 2021)
Z man diesel minnow (4”) - redbone
Storm 360 Searchbait 4” paddletail (pearl seems best for walleye)


I picked up some Kalin’s tickle tail paddletail baits this off-season. Really interested to see how they perform- will report back. Heading in on 5/27!
"

How did you rig the Zman baits?

The TRD minnowZ is usually rigged on a zman shroomz jig head. The diesel minnow in a VMC moon eye, northland MVP jig, or kalin’s google eye. Usually 1/4 oz. Colors didn’t seem to matter that much last year for jig heads. We were fishing in a lot of current areas so color likey matters less when you’re fishing in a target rich environment. Black, orange/chartreuse, chartreuse all worked great.

BWCAgoer: "The TRD minnowZ is usually rigged on a zman shroomz jig head. The diesel minnow in a VMC moon eye, northland MVP jig, or kalin’s google eye. Usually 1/4 oz. Colors didn’t seem to matter that much last year for jig heads. We were fishing in a lot of current areas so color likey matters less when you’re fishing in a target rich environment. Black, orange/chartreuse, chartreuse all worked great. "

Hey thanks

Tom Boley on YouTube has a great channel that focuses on walleye fishing in the Midwest. He uses a lot of swimbaits, especially Kalin’s tickle tail and similar. Great resource to learn a bit more about this style of fishing and to see some nice walleye action.

Thanks for sharing pics and videos featuring my old canoe. That baby had a lot of memories and it’s awesome to see it having more!

Which fleet farm did you get the Northland Paddle tails. I went to Lakeville and they didn’t even know what I was talking about :)

T

Berkley ripple shads in the 3.25” size have worked well for me up there.

Steady retrieve with some hops and flutters mixed in. Usually on a 1/4 oz head but you can use 1/8 in shallow calm water.

Good luck!

i use to use twistertails mainly , but now they've taken a backseat to the paddle tails , been doing really great as of late. as far as a retrieve goes , depends on water temp/time of year for me, spring /fall generally slower(sometimes) to the point i'm just crawling it across the bottom. just trying to act like a little baitfish moving across the bottom for an easy meal , not being aware of the big walleye right behind me LOL ;)
i'll also add a jigspinner to the set up. pic of TT set up
SIMPLE & DEADLY !