A bottom bouncer should be in the heart of your walleye arsenal. You'll find that bottom bouncer fishing is fun, easy, and the whole family can do it.

Whether drifting or trolling, simply remember to let out enough line so that the bottom bouncer touches bottom. Fish the bottom bouncer by keeping track of the bottom and remember, speed is important. If using spinners, go fast enough so that the spinner blade spins. If the spinner doesn't spin, it will snag. When your speed is not fast enough for a spinner to spin, use a plain hook or tie a crankbait on three to four feet behind the bottom bouncer.

I fish the bottom bouncer three ways. The first method I use, about 10 percent of the time, employs a crankbait. I tie a shallow diving crankbait like a Rebel Minnow to the the bottom bouncer with a four to five-foot leader when fishing vertical structure. No other presentation allows a crankbait to run a foot off the bottom in 10 feet, down to 30 feet and up to 10 feet again. Generally, you'll find the biggest fish on the steepest structure, whether it's along the side or on the tip where the point drops into deeper water.

The second method I use is with a spinner, which I use about 20 percent of the time. This is a top producer in big wind and waves on flats. When drifting, all I have to do is drop the spinner over the side and make sure the wind is blowing the boat fast enough for the blade to spin. The big waves seem to trigger aggressive fish looking for movement.

Method three, used in about 70 percent of my total bottom bouncer fishing, is done with a single hook on a four to five-foot leader with a #1 or #2 Aberdeen light wire hook. I can bait this with a minnow, leech or crawler. Hook the minnow through the lips, the crawler throughout the middle (not through the head), and the leech near the sucker. The leech is my favorite bait because it's durable, lives a long time and swims continually. Fish the plain hook anytime the boat isn't moving fast enough for a blade to spin, or use this system anytime you're fishing an area over 30 feet deep. When you're over 30 feet deep, you'll have some difficulty keeping the bottom bouncer down, while still moving fast enough to keep a spinner spinning.

The bottom bouncer is not a magic bait, but it sure seems like it. Jerry Anderson, one of the nation's top walleye fishermen, from Onamia, Minnesota, summed it up best when he said, "A bottom bouncer works better than it should."