

- SLIDING WEIGHT BOTTOM BOUNCER RIG FULL
- SLIDING WEIGHT BOTTOM BOUNCER RIG PRO
- SLIDING WEIGHT BOTTOM BOUNCER RIG PROFESSIONAL
While Parsons and company tried to keep the slow-death secret under wraps, amateur tournament partners were eventually exposed to the technique, and before long, loose lips were sinking walleye ships everywhere. But after Spaid shared his technique with Parsons and tournament partner Keith Kavajecz, the duo used it to win tens of thousands of dollars. According to Parsons, the tricks of regional guides rarely catch on at the elite tournament level.
SLIDING WEIGHT BOTTOM BOUNCER RIG PROFESSIONAL
Gary Parsons, the most successful professional walleye angler of all time, is also quick to praise Spaid. “I was struggling to get a bite, yet every time I turned around I saw Dave netting another fish. “I remember fishing against Dave,” says Dryden, Ontario’s John Butts, the first Canadian to ever win a Professional Walleye Trail tournament. In fact, it was only en route to his third Governor’s Cup victory that Spaid turned to Cheddar and asked, “What do you think we should call this method?”Īnd the rest, as they say, is history.
SLIDING WEIGHT BOTTOM BOUNCER RIG PRO
Soon, Spaid became a local celebrity, and every big-name walleye pro was trying to learn his secret tactic, which he hadn’t even named yet. Armed with their modified rig, the duo humiliated the field again in 19. A few days later, those same pros snuck out of town with their tails between their legs, humbled by Spaid and Cheddar-who, incidentally, had never fished a tournament before. Then along came the 1990 Governor’s Cup, one of the most prestigious tournaments in walleye angling, with 200 of the top touring professionals converging on South Dakota’s Lake Oahe. When Spaid and Cheddar trolled the strange-looking rig behind a bottom bouncer at moderate speeds, to their amazement the bait rotated in a corkscrew fashion, enticing more and bigger walleye than any other tactic they’d tried. They then threaded on a nightcrawler, giving it the distorted shape of the shank, and pinched off the trailing end so only a small, smelly nub hung off the back. Undaunted, the pair modified the rig even further, ultimately discovering the critical component: pulling nothing but a simple #2 Tru-Turn Aberdeen hook, with its unique 45-degree kink in the shank.
SLIDING WEIGHT BOTTOM BOUNCER RIG FULL
“But by the full moon in August, when the water was really warm, even that faltered,” he says.

So one summer, Spaid removed the blades and trolled with just the beads, two hooks and a crawler. The problem? In order to make the blades spin, they had to troll quickly, which was too fast for the lethargic fish. “You drag it across the bottom and it creates noise, stirs up the sediment and triggers walleye to bite.”Įvery summer, however, Spaid and his fishing partner, Brett Cheddar, would hit a slump on their home water, the Missouri River, when the walleye would stop hitting their bouncer-and-spinner combinations. “We’ve known for a long time about using bottom bouncers and spinners to catch walleye,” says South Dakota fishing guide Dave Spaid. Here’s what you need to know to join the action. But as the latest killer tactic in the world of walleye fishing, slow death is definitely catching on. Fear not, however-this isn’t some sinister new epidemic. Well, at least it is among elite walleye pros who ply the tough tournament circuits and rely on cashing big cheques to pay down their mortgages and put food on the table. Thank you to Gord Pyzer for publishing this article – OUR EXCLUSIVE GUIDE TO THE TROLLING TACTIC WALLEYE PROS DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOWīeware: Slow death is sweeping across North America.
