Walleye Spinners 101
By: Tyler Dunn

Spinners are without a doubt one of the top producing walleye baits of all time. Spring, summer or fall spinners can be effective during any of the soft-water months. The following tips will help you not only tie your own custom rigs but catch more walleye on the all-mighty spinner.

Tie Your Own
I don’t know any serious walleye anglers who buy spinner rigs from a big name store such as Canadian Tire or Wal-Mart. Some do still purchase rigs off local tackle stores but most will agree that homemade, hand tied spinners can’t be beat. The simple components needed for tying spinners are line, beads, blades, hooks, clevises and barrel swivels. These are extremely cheap and are widely available at most tackle stores in a mind numbing variety of colours and sizes. The most expensive component will be the line you decide to use. I prefer to use Seaguar’s 100% fluorocarbon leader material in 10 or 12 pound test. A good substitute for leader material is any fluorocarbon coated line. Fluorocarbon is much more abrasion resistant compared to mono filament and becomes virtually invisible beneath the water. Follow the steps below and tie your own spinners.

Step 1 - 18 – 60 inch piece of 100% fluorocarbon leader material

Step 2 - Tie barrel swivel to one end of the line

Step 3 - Place 2-3 beads on line

Step 4 - Place the blade on the clevis and feed the line through the clevis. Make sure the rounded side of blade is facing towards the swivel and the cupped side has nothing below yet

Step 5 - Place 2-6 beads on line

Step 6 - Snell an octopus hook and leave a tag length sufficient enough to tie on another hook

Step 7 – Snell the final octopus hook and complete the spinner by trimming the tag end.

Deep Spinner Rigging
Bottom bouncers are one of the most efficient ways to present a spinner. Using a bouncer can be difficult during the beginning stages but with some persistence you will quickly learn how to constantly present the perfect bounce. Bottom bouncers are V-shaped pieces of wire with a lead sinker moulded at one end and a swivel at the other intended for your spinner. You’re mainline which should be heavier line then the line on your spinners is attached at the bend in the wire. The reason for using a heavier mainline is to prevent from losing your bottom bouncers when your spinners get hung up. The spinner will break but your bottom bouncer will be saved. When I do get a bouncer snagged on something I immediately free spool my reel, giving my line a bit of slack and snap the rod quickly. If this doesn’t work simply go over the snag in the opposite direction you came from and usually the bouncer will easily pop free. Having too much line out is going to result in a lot more snags rather than not having enough line out. In order to keep the least amount of line out but enough to keep bottom contact every so often, use the rule of 1 oz of weight for every 10 feet of water your fishing. Another easy way to determine if you have too much line out is the angle at which your line is entering the water. Anything more than 45 degrees will you will be dragging bottom too much and a snag is inevitable in rocky or woody areas.

Shallow Spinner Rigging
Spinners are not just presented well on a bottom bouncer but shallow weed bed walleyes have a soft spot for them too. A spinner, trolled on a long line just over top of a weed bed can entice walleyes throughout the entire year. Split shots or egg sinkers are great weight options for getting a spinner in the strike zone. The strike zone would be just above the fish, ticking just the tops of the weeds. Spinners are usually pulled at speeds between of 2 mph and lower but often when trying to cover a huge amount of water speeds of 2+ are not uncommon in large bodies of water such as any part of the Great Lakes.

Gear
Rods in the 7-8 foot length are ideal unless longer rods are needed for presenting multiple rods. Bottom bouncer rods require an extremely soft tip. Companies do offer many technique specific rods designed for bottom bouncing but a great substitute for them is a medium-heavy crank bait rod. These rods are often E-glass or fibreglass rods that literally have tips that absorb everything which is needed for deep water spinner rigging. As far as line, I already mentioned that I always spool my reel with heavier line then I have on my spinners to prevent losing bottom bouncers to break-offs.