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Night
Hawk Stories...
Entry 20
Accessories That Will Help Win Walleye Tournaments
EDITOR'S
NOTE: Gary Parsons of Glidden, Wisconsin, a professional walleye fisherman,
specializes in tournament fishing, speaking, writing and walleye-fishing
promotions. Gary, who has fished in walleye tournaments since 1983, has
won Angler-of-the-Year titles on all three pro-walleye circuits: the North
American Walleye Anglers in 1995, the Professional Walleye Trail in 1993
and 1994 and the Masters Walleye Circuit in 1988 -- the only angler to
accomplish these feats. Parsons and his business partner, Keith Kavajecz,
won the Masters Walleye Circuit Team of the Year and World Championship
in 1988. Gary and Keith co-host "Bass Pro Shop's Outdoor World," which
airs on TNN.
QUESTION: Can you give us three final tips on how to
win a walleye tournament?
ANSWER:
TIP 9: Replace the factory treble hooks on your crankbaits. When you go
into a competition, you want to eliminate as many lost fish as possible.
Replacing your factory crankbait hooks with premium hooks proves one of
the best things to do. By switching to premium hooks, you'll lose fewer
fish. Most hard-core tournament fishermen do this. Just remember to never
use a hook physically heavier than the hook you replace. If you don't
use a hook of the same weight, it can destroy the crankbait's action.
TIP
10: If you fish tournaments, you'll find that you'll spend many long,
tedious hours stripping line off your reels and replacing it. Usually
you'll use so many different techniques that you probably won't have enough
rods and reels for all the various tactics, which means you'll have to
replace line, which is both time-consuming and tedious. But Berkley has
a great solution. Berkley offers the best Line Stripper in the business
and also carries a first-rate Line Spooling Station. Because of its small
size and compactness, tournament fishermen can easily carry it.
TIP
11: When trolling crankbaits, the name of the game is reproducibility.
If you have a certain crankbait with X amount of line let out, that bait
will go to a certain depth that you try to target. While you troll, you'll
probably experiment with different depths and crankbaits. But invariably
you'll come up with a combination that works. When you find a combination
that works, you need to have the ability to do exactly the same thing
again to get that second, third, fourth and fifth bite. Fishermen commonly
have one rod and reel that catches almost all the fish when they troll.
To try to even things out more as you troll, make sure you use a line
counter reel, which measure the amount of line you have out. Then once
you put together the right combination, you can do it again. For instance,
if you let that crankbait out at 98 feet, then you want to do exactly
the same thing the second time as well as on one of the other rod and
reel setups, too. By using line counters, you can duplicate that success.
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