Western Harness Rigs...and Plastic Death

[kjackson]

I said I would post shots of some of the rigs we used in Washington and the Columbia. These all are pre-tied, but they can give you an idea of what was in use 20 years ago.

This is a shot of one corner of my spinner box. While I did use pre-tied rigs, mostly I tied my own using Winner and Lil' Corky floats from Yakima Bait and Okie Drifter bodies from Luhr Jensen.

The Spin N Glos above were deadly used ahead of a bead (for a bearing surface) and a crawler. They come in well over 100 finishes when you combine wing color--white, black--silver mylar, pink mylar and chartreuse mylar--I think that's all) in sizes that range from the smallest, about the size of a dried navy bean to the largest which comes close to a small hen's egg.

This is Yakima Bait's pre-tied version of the Spin N Glo rig.

Here is another version tied by Yakima Bait and designed by the late Roy Houle. This gives you an idea, good or bad, of some other means of floating a crawler harness. When I was introduced to "floating spinners" as we called them, we'd also take a worm blower and give the crawler a shot of air.

And this is Luhr Jensen's version using an Okie Drifter for a body.

While RPS likes a single hook to reduce snags, two small hooks in tandem are also relatively snagless and possibly weigh less than some long, single hooks. The hooks used on the above spinners are large in part because of the size of the walleyes in the region and the belief that the larger Octopus hooks would hold better than smaller hooks.

Finally, here is Mustad's new version of the Slow Death hook. It's designed for use with plastic baits, and that is why there is such an exaggerated bend. Sorry about the soft focus, but I figured that the bend was more important for visualization than the point. We've all seen points.

For those not familiar with the idea of a slow-death hook, you thread half a crawler up the hook past the eye. The half crawler then spins like crazy when it is slowly trolled and has two things that walleyes like: motion and scent. I don't know the theory of why such a strong bend is needed for soft plastic, as I haven't had a lot of problems getting plastic to spin, but somebody likes it.

[J-Doc]

I cannot imagine why these would not be deadly on Beaver Lake walleye.

We shall see soon. You bring your bag of tricks and I'll supply the means. :-)

[Quillback]

Spin and glows - makes we want to go steelhead fishing again. I was more of a corkie and egg guy however.

[Feathers and Fins]

Love the spin a glows myself, and I as well enjoy tying them up. There is no wrong pattern as long as you can imagine one a fish will bite it.

[powerdive]

kjackson, did you know Cal Burkhardsmeier (old Walleye Central screen name eye_chasr), Larry McClintock or Brian Henton from the Western Walleye Club? They're old friends I've never actually met. Cal exchanged some things with me--I sent him some of my brother's hand-tied jigs and harness rigs (stuff used here), and he sent me some blade baits with modified hooks, Mack's spinner rigs that Larry tied and extra smile blades (stuff used there). That was back before the smile blades came into play farther east.

Definitely a bucket list item, to fish the Columbia for walleyes someday!

Nice to see some beef on that Mustad. Wish they'd strengthen their regular Slow Death hooks.

[kjackson]

Forgot to add one more spinner. This is a non-floater tied with a hoochie. Back in the day, a company built one of these with a small float on a 6-inch leader, and it worked fairly well. And a Washington company, Wicked Lures is tying these for salmon and steelhead in rivers. The line is now moving into the Great Lakes fishery.

Powerdive--nope, didn't know them, but then I moved about the time internet forums got started, and I chased salmon exclusively for a while instead.

F&F-- you're right there. The Spin N Glos are great for a less-intrusive presentation when the fish aren't terribly active--Or when they are, for that matter.

J-Doc--Your boat isn't big enough for my bag of tricks. I have stuff.

[Feathers and Fins]

Oh that hoochie has me thinking. I use to tie hundreds of them for Mackerel and Kingfish never thought of doing it for walleye. Now I need to make a call damit.

[rps]

Thank you kjackson! I love learning new things.