This simple rig catches walleye, panfish and trout like crazy—and you’re not using it!

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BROOKIES, BROWNS & RAINBOWS

Gord Pyzer
Gord Pyzer

Most anglers are shocked to learn that brook, brown and rainbow trout were the first species to be caught—after bass—when drop-shotting took North America by storm. That’s because the bass lakes in California, where the technique first gained a toehold, are stocked during the winter with trout. The bass boys just couldn’t keep them off their hooks. When trout aficionados learned what was happening and tailored the presentation to their needs, it was, as the song goes, California Dreamin’.

Drop-shotting is particularly effective in snaggy trout territory, because the hook is always riding off the bottom and rarely gets hung up. And if you do snag, it’s typically the sinker wedgedinto a crack in the rocks or around a submerged log or branch, not the hook. When that happens, just pull the line free from the easy-to-release sinker and attach a new one.

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If you do find that snagging is a problem where you fish, use a so-called slinky weight instead of the standard cylinder or ball-shaped sinker. You can easily make a slinky by stuffing several splitshot inside a hollow piece of camo or dark-coloured parachute cord. I always seal one end first by holding a lighter against the cord until it bubbles, then squeeze it shut with a pair of pliers. After inserting the split shot, I seal the other end the same way. Then I take a hot needle and slide it through one end, making a hole into which I attach a split-ring swivel or snap (below).

Snap

My late friend Tony Valeriote was the finest slinky trout angler I’ve ever seen, and the Niagara River was his stomping grounds. To say that the Niagara is snaggy, especially below the falls and whirlpool, is a major understatement. Yet the first time I fished the river with Tony, I lost only one slinky to a snag the entire day. That’s how effective this flexible weight is. And when you use a slinky as your drop-shot weight, you can fish for trout from shore and open up a plethora of new opportunities in the multitude of natural and stocked brook, brown, rainbow and splake lakes—many accessible only by foot—scattered across the Shield.

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