DOING THE DROP-SHOT THING
When walleyes are a tad leery, due to clear water or because they're neutral or negative, they investigate a bait more discriminately and need to be enticed into biting. Drop-shotting allows you to slowly work the bait, adding realistic enticing movements that often are the key to triggering strikes.

"It's not like any other form of rigging, and it's not like jigging, either," Naig contends. "Rather it's similar to the way I work lures during the ice season, with more of a jiggle and shaking action rather than a jigging action or rigging movement.

"Through the ice, fish move in and investigate your bait, but they often need to be enticed into striking by adding a shake, jiggle, or twitch. I work drop-shot rigs the same way, envisioning a fish down there investigating my bait, and what I try to do is entice the fish strike."

Plastics with a minnow profile and a light thin tail that moves and wiggles easily seem to be the top plastics for walleyes. "Minnowlike profiles are my favorite for walleyes, like Berkley's Drop-Shot Power Minnows, though many soft plastic minnows produce. Even Berkley Power Crawlers or soft plastic leeches work. Several Berkley Gulp! shapes make for excellent drop-shotting. Simply twitching or shaking the line causes the bait to dance and swim."

When the bite is tough, Naig switches to livebait -- minnows, leeches, or crawlers. Leeches are ideal because they're constantly moving and swimming. A lip-hooked minnows dances on a drop-shot rig -- fighting and struggling against the hook.

To learn what types of action you're giving the bait, lower your drop-shot rig in clear shallow water or in an aquarium and note what the bait does by twitching and shaking the line with your rod tip. Naig uses an underwater camera and says it's a great way to learn what your bait is doing. "Ice fishing allows you to set the camera stationary so you can watch and learn what combination of twitches, shakes, and pauses imparts different actions to your bait. Drop-shotting, by the way, works great for ice fishing."

Keep the rig fairly vertical to keep the bait off bottom and suspended. Getting a walleye to rise up off the bottom triggers the fish to make a decision to eat or not to eat. More often then not, though, if you can get a walleye to rise up, it's going to eat. "If the fish are sluggish and hugging bottom and you're fishing your bait right on bottom, the presentation may be too subtle to trigger strikes. And because the bait is on bottom, fish may not see it as well as a bait enticingly dangling 12 inches or so above their heads.

"Again, I typically tie the hook about 12 to 18 inches above the weight. But I've tied them up as high as three feet. In waters where it's legal to fish two lures on one line, I've even tied two hooks on the line, one at 36 inches, the other about 12 inches up from bottom. Sometimes I use a jig on the bottom as the weight. It seems to serve as double action, double attraction, and it doubles my odds," Naig concludes.

Drop-shotting isn't difficult. It's simply a rigging refinement that allows you to stay in contact with bottom and keep your bait out of snags and up where walleyes can see it. It may be something new to try, and in some situations, may put more and bigger walleyes in your boat. Don't drop out before giving it a shot on your favorite walleye waters.