One of our favorite ways to catch walleyes is jigging. The good thing about jigging is, you're applying all the action to the lure, so you don't really need live bait. We can't say we can tell the difference between a Berkley Power Jigworm and half of a crawler on a jig. They both have a nice flipping action. The most important thing about plastics for walleyes is that you need a much more limber plastic than you would for bass fishing. That limberness gives it a good tail-flipping action. The walleye selection of Berkley Power Baits also have a different scent combination that's very appealing to these fish.

Keith Kavajecz is a twelve time In-Fisherman PWT Championship Qualifier.

The main two lures we use on a jig are the Berkley Power Jigworm, a 3-inch worm with a paddle on the back. The other is the Berkley Power Minnow, designed with a very flippy tail so it looks like a minnow coming through the water.

The type of jighead used depends on where we’re fishing. For casting or pitching the jig in shallow water, the Northland Fire-Ball jig is our first choice. It’s best to stick with the 1/8- or 1/16-ounce size. The reason a Fire-Ball is good for casting is that it has a short, wide-gap hook. When casting a jig, you have to set the hook horizontally, so that wide gap gives you a better chance of contacting the fish's mouth on the hookset.

When fishing deeper, like when jig-trolling or vertical-jigging a small piece of structure on a river, a Northland Tackle Buck-Shot Rattle Jig, which has a long-shank hook, is a great choice. That long shank is better when setting the hook vertically or straight up, so the length of the hook is what's giving you a better chance of hooking the fish.

Whether casting or vertical iigging, the best action you can impart to the jig is to lift, pause, and then let it settle down to the bottom. If you're casting, simply lift and hold the rod, which will let the jig swim towards you. When you're vertical jigging, you obviously have to lift, pause, and then let the jig slowly drop back down. That pause -- that lifting the jig off the bottom and then pausing -- is one of most effective things a jig fisherman can do. Many anglers like to move the rod tip a lot. They want to jig. They want to lift, drop, lift, drop. Pausing the lure is one of the easiest things you can do to get more bites, and it'll make you a much better fisherman.

Gary Parsons is an eleven time In-Fisherman PWT Championship Qualifier.

We stick with the natural colors in the Jigworm; I want it to look like a crawler. In the Power Minnow, the black back with the silver belly, or the dark-green top with a white belly are great colors. A real minnow is dark on top and light on the bottom. With the Fire-Ball, we stick with the multi-colors: fire-tiger, parrot, rainbow. A lot of times you don't know what the best color is. What we'll do is pitch one of those jigs and if it starts working well, pick one of the colors on the jighead -- dark-green, blue, white or chartreuse -- to see if that's the best color of the day. You never know what's going to trigger the fish. In the Buck-Shot Rattle Jig, our No. 1 color is lime-green. And the secondary color, the one Keith says he’s caught most of his big fish on, is blue. Blue is an underfished color, and it's something walleyes don't see much.

Keith Kavajecz and Gary Parsons of Kaukauna, Wis., are top competitors on the In-Fisherman Professional Walleye Trail. They pioneered many of the trolling and open-water techniques that are commonly used today.

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