Weeds and walleyes often go together, though weed walleyes and walleye anglers often remain far apart on the location and presentation scene. First, many anglers believe walleyes never use weeds, so they avoid the green stuff. Second, even anglers who consider the possibility seldom fish tight enough to the deep weededge to be effective; they're afraid of fouling hooks and rigs, wasting time, and reducing their catch. At best, they occasionally flirt with the weed walleye zone, rather than establishing a productive fishing pattern.

The key to livebait rigging weededges is to position your livebait as close as possible to the outer fringe of weeds, tickling, probing, perhaps even penetrating into it on occasion, while simultaneously minimizing hang-ups and lost fishing time.

All weed conditions are not equal, and weedgrowth continually changes throughout the season. Weeds start out low and sparse early in the year, progressively blooming into tall, lush underwater forests by midseason. Matching subtle refinements in livebait rigging style to weed type, height, and density, as well as walleye position and mood, provides the edge for contacting weedline walleyes.

FLOAT 'EM HIGH, SLIP 'EM LOW, PULL 'EM QUICK, FISH 'EM SLOW Slow -- Traditional slow, finesse livebait rigging excels when you can fish tight to a distinct weededge or slither a rig between sparse stalks along the deep perimeter of a weedbed. When walleyes display neutral to negative feeding attitudes and are unwilling to move far or fast to chase a bait, tempt them with a slow, subtle wiggle of the bait in their faces, giving them time to react before the lively leech, crawler, or minnow moves out of their strike zone.

When faced with a distinct vertical wall of weeds, generally formed by a pronounced drop-off to deeper water along the outer weededge, a traditional walking sinker sliprig performs fine. While backtrolling or control drifting along the edge, move the boat slightly shallower or deeper, causing your lines to barely tickle the weededge, before pulling the rig slightly deeper, outside the weeds, to minimize snags. Active fish typically position on or near a distinct weededge.

Fish straight weedlines as parallel as possible, as tight as possible, letting the rig slither along the fringe. When faced with twists, turns, corners, or an irregular weededge, shorten your line and perhaps increase sinker weight to the next common size, to fish as vertical as possible and weave the rig along the edge. Trolling a long line will hit only the tips of the points, whereas a short line can follow nooks and crannies.

Anytime weeds form an indistinct edge, you may have to penetrate them slightly to trigger a bite from less-active fish lying farther inside the periphery. This often requires switching from a walking sinker to a more weed-resistant version, like a bullet or egg sinker. The pointed nose of a bullet and the rounded end of an egg slip through weeds rather than collecting them along the junction with the line. Lindy-Little Joe's curved No-Snagg slipsinker is another option that sheds most sparse weeds.

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