Best Live Bait Rig Rod

Matt Shene reported catching Walleye using the Live Bait Rigs technique and Daiwa Tatula Series Spinning Rods - EOL on Oneida Lake . Additional comments from this report: "On a warm afternoon with light wind, I started casting inline weights with a locally made Hammer worm harness in orange to weed edges. The pickerel and rock bass were active, but walleye were hard to find. I moved to deeper ledges (15-19', 24-27', and 30-32') and found a mix of keeper and short walleye. There were lots of fish on the graph, but only the occasional bite. Every fish was spitting up perch fry as they were caught, so it's likely that they are well fed at this point in the summer."

Nate reported catching Walleye using the Live Bait Rigs technique and St. Croix Victory Spinning Rods on Holcombe Flowage. Additional comments from this report: "Cruising the shorelines in 11fow to 14fow with spinner crawler harness rigs at 1.2 mph was the ticket to get bit today. Forgot to swing by the bait shop on the way to the boat lauch. Put on some gulp crawlers and end up catching 16in, 19in, and 24in walleye. Also, a surprise 25in flathead catfish!! Great day on the water!!!"

Pierce Knarr reported catching Trout using the Live Bait Rigs technique and St. Croix Victory Spinning Rods on Lake Taneycomo. Additional comments from this report: "Trout were along the bottom, drifting split shot rigs with a 1/4 crawler was best for nice browns and rainbows"

Ben Aeilts reported catching Largemouth Bass using the Live Bait Rigs technique and St. Croix Victory Spinning Rods on Gull Lake. Additional comments from this report: "Great bite on weed line and humps. 14 - 17 feet. "

Jason Halfen reported catching Muskie using the Live Bait Rigs technique and St. Croix Mojo Musky Casting Rods - EOL on Chippewa Flowage. Additional comments from this report: "It seems like winter is just around the corner at the Chippewa Flowage near Hayward WI. On a weekend that featured snow, wind, and then some more snow, we managed to make contact with several big Flowage muskies on suckers. The only fish we were able to trigger were shallow - from shoreline out to the inside weed line. In many cases, we idled along a promising stretch of shoreline and imaged these fish with Humminbird MEGA Side Imaging - before we ever put a bait in the water. Once we spotted a fish, we circled around, lowered large suckers rigged on quick-strike rigs and suspended beneath a float, and used our Minn Kota Ulterra to pull us through the zone at speeds of 0.3-0.5 mph. Seems like a fair number of fish in those ultra-shallows - give that a try if you're heading up in the next few weeks. Keep in mind, the Flowage has already been lowered by about 5 feet, so you'll encounter a fair number of navigation hazards that aren't normally a problem. Be sure to use the Water Level Offset feature of your Humminbird Lakemaster card to account for the low water. "

Tanner Raschke reported catching Sturgeon using the Live Bait Rigs technique and St. Croix Mojo Musky Casting Rods - EOL on Lake of the Woods (US). Additional comments from this report: "Fished the Rainy River from Birchdale to Frontier. Fish the upstream part of a deeper hole or the edges of the bottom side of the holes. 14-18ft was best. Heavy rods, reels and line are better for everything. Easier to fish the large weights, easier to reel in these big fish and easier on the fish. Flat no roll weight in 3-4oz keeps the bait in place. Put that above a heavy swivel and tie on a piece of the same kind of line or other heavy line, 6-12" below the swivel with the circle hook on a snell knot. Glob on a few or more crawlers and maybe a frozen shiner or 2 and get it to the bottom. With a circle hook you don't set the hook, just reel slowly until you feel some pressure and give a little pressure back. You can also skip the swivel and add a large bead above the hook. Some people even will add a small spinner or rattle when it's extremely muddy. "

Ray Valley reported catching Sturgeon using the Live Bait Rigs technique and St. Croix Mojo Musky Casting Rods - EOL on Lake Saint Croix. Additional comments from this report: "This is THE time of the year to be out Sturgeon fishing on the St. Croix! Fresh (never frozen) shad are their preferred forage and very abundant right now and if you have the appropriate permits from the MN DNR to catch them with the cast net (advice: its worth jumping through the hoops to get the cast net permit). Look for the gulls, and the shad will be there. Bottom structure is not really important and I've been known to stop at random places in the river channel, plop down, and have good success. But when you can find mid channel areas with lots of bait activity on your depth finder, that's going to be the best spot to be which is where we were on this outing. We caught 6 sturgeon in 3.5 hours with 3 over 50," with the biggest being 53" and never moved spots. Each time the little bells on the rod tip jingled just a bit, we'd have a fish on the end. We'd load up the tip and the 7/0 VMC circle hook dug into the fleshy lips of the sturgeon perfect every time. The river was calm and peaceful and I sometimes have to pinch myself to realize how amazing of a fishery and environment the St. Croix is."