From the Pitchin Puppet, to the jigging rap, Hyper Glide, Shiver Minnows, and more, glide baits are a popular walleye bait come midsummer but there are often a lot of questions about the right line, rod setup, and how to use them. Jason Mitchell explains a simple glide bait program and setup that you can use to land more fish right now.
From midsummer on, glide baits shine when walleye are positioned higher off the bottom (~3-6ft). With glide baits, you can get the bait up in front of the fish and trigger a strike as it falls. Fish will often chase the bait and pin it to the bottom, so it’s not uncommon to snag a lot of fish on the outside of the face with this presentation.
Most glide baits have relatively small hooks. When setting these small hooks into big fish, it can be easy to tear fish off so a lot of anglers will run monofilament with glide baits for added forgiveness. Mitchell, however, is a proponent of using braid in an 8-10lb test to get more control in the action of the bait and to allow a better hook set when further out from the boat.
Whether you use monofilament or braid, one thing that is very important when fishing glide baits is to use a small barrel swivel 2-3’ above the lure because they generate a lot of line twist. When you cast a glide bait out and pop it back with any stroke or snap, you need the bait to fall back to bottom on slack line to get it to glide down. Usually fish will hit it on the fall or pin it to the bottom. If you get a lot of twist in your line, your line will have a greater tendency to wrap around your rod tip which will cost you a lot of fish.
When tying the bait on, Mitchell recommends tying direct because it seems to have less tendency to get the hooks fowled in the line. However, several anglers use a cross lock snap swivel with minimal issues. There’s no right or wrong when it comes to glide baits, you just have to experiment to find what works best for you to give you more confidence in using these baits. When choosing a rod, go with a Medium Extra Fast tip in a 6-6.5’ length. Longer rods aren’t necessary for this presentation and if anything might fatigue you more.
If you don’t have a lot of confidence in glide baits or have the stamina to work one aggressively all day, the Pitchin Puppet is a very user friendly option. With the exaggerated tail fin, it doesn’t take as much of an upstroke to get them to glide up off the bottom and you can use a softer hop for the same action as compared to some other lures.
