Sounded like a great idea so I tried in a swimming pool. Tried with a bullet weight, pegged bullet weight, a bell sinker and a lindy weight. I assumed it would float level but near the bottom. Found that I could keep the nose down but the tail end floated up at a 45 degree angle. Tried suspend dots and wrapping some lead wire on the rear treble......nada. Tried several other lures but the only one that stayed level was a Lucky Craft jerkbait. So I gave up on the concept but at least experiment taught me something.

The original floating Rapala was how the jerkbait was invented here on Table rock . Some guys figured out how drill them out and fill the holes with shot. Of course they were made out of balsa sometimes they wrapped the hook shanks with solder to get them to suspend.

Of course they were made of balsa which is why they were called stickbaits and we still call any kind of jerkbait a stickbait around here.

There was a real art to making them dive and suspend in fact you could actually rent them at a couple of the marinas on Table rock.

Not really fishing them as a jerkbait, but I was Carolina rigging them in the early 70's for walleye. I've been doing that for bass for decades and I'll let the cat out of the bag; you can do it with cranks, too. Bass rarely, if ever, see a small crank in 15ft.+

I have fished them a few times behind trolling weights and various sinkers. Since I could not see them I had know idea they might be swimming/floating tail up.

Maybe I'll do some experimenting and try some heavy tail hooks.

Carolina rig them. I let the cat out of the bag in this recent video:

11 hours ago, papajoe222 said:

Not really fishing them as a jerkbait, but I was Carolina rigging them in the early 70's for walleye. I've been doing that for bass for decades and I'll let the cat out of the bag; you can do it with cranks, too. Bass rarely, if ever, see a small crank in 15ft.+

This is crazy talk. Does not work. C rig is for soft plastics only. Cat is now back in bag, please secure the bag better this time.

I Carolina rigged a Bomber Long A Minnow one day and caught a couple. Never have tried it since. I'll have to reintroduce myself to that . I have some Rapalas collecting dust.

I have one small origins floater. I may try C-rig this year. Never really cared for them floating to the surface

Does the bait not staying horizontal matter more to you or the fish? Before you give up on the idea, fish it with the tail floating up. Maybe, the fish won’t care and eat it anyway.

Lighter and longer leaders let it level. I am a huge fan of this technique on a Carolina rig.

On 2/22/2026 at 11:26 AM, Scott F said:

Does the bait not staying horizontal matter more to you or the fish? Before you give up on the idea, fish it with the tail floating up. Maybe, the fish won’t care and eat it anyway.

I just assumed keep it level was imperative, now you have me questioning that assumption.

Piling on - I have never seen keeping a jerkbait level matter to the fish. If it gets too un-level it will affect the action but I don’t know that I’ve ever had that problem much and when I did it was tail-down because of a leak in a plastic one.

Trolling rapalas is pretty common up here in walleye world. As @VolFan said, a longer lighter leader will help the presentation. I prefer to run them off a 3 way swivel with weight determined by depth. @Tucson are you trying to cast this?

On 2/21/2026 at 12:59 AM, Glenn said:

Carolina rig them. I let the cat out of the bag in this recent video:

And here I thought I was some kind of genius rigging crankbaits and jerkbaits on a carolina rig. Been doing it for years and here I thought it was my secret sauce. 😂

On 3/7/2026 at 9:05 PM, MontanaBasser said:

Trolling rapalas is pretty common up here in walleye world. As @VolFan said, a longer lighter leader will help the presentation. I prefer to run them off a 3 way swivel with weight determined by depth. @Tucson are you trying to cast this?

I am but not too successfully. That's why I eliminated the 3-way swivel approach. It's more of a lob cast so distance is affected.

How do you present this combination?

On 3/8/2026 at 3:21 AM, IYAOYAS said:

And here I thought I was some kind of genius rigging crankbaits and jerkbaits on a carolina rig. Been doing it for years and here I thought it was my secret sauce. 😂

Outstanding video, thanks Glen and thanks for the repost.

21 minutes ago, Tucson said:

I am but not too successfully. That's why I eliminated the 3-way swivel approach. It's more of a lob cast so distance is affected.

How do you present this combination?

We troll them. As in two lines per angler out the back of the boat. Lots of guys have switched to doing this with their trolling motor but historically people would have a smaller outboard kicker they would use. The real trick is getting your bait at the right depth. The guys who get really into it will have computer controlled down riggers, planer boards, dipsy divers, bottom bouncers and more to put the baits in different parts of the water column.

I only troll a little so all that stuff is too much for me. I use the guideline of 1oz@1mph=10 ft.

On 3/18/2026 at 9:00 AM, MontanaBasser said:

We troll them. As in two lines per angler out the back of the boat. Lots of guys have switched to doing this with their trolling motor but historically people would have a smaller outboard kicker they would use. The real trick is getting your bait at the right depth. The guys who get really into it will have computer controlled down riggers, planer boards, dipsy divers, bottom bouncers and more to put the baits in different parts of the water column.

I only troll a little so all that stuff is too much for me. I use the guideline of 1oz@1mph=10 ft.

Trolling with a 3-way makes a lot more sense. That's why I defaulted to a pegged bullet weight for casting.

2 hours ago, Tucson said:

Trolling with a 3-way makes a lot more sense. That's why I defaulted to a pegged bullet weight for casting.

I agree. I I've seen rigging diagrams for surf casting 3 way rigs and it sounds like snarle city to me. I think they may be using a thick enough line to avoid it. Even when trolling I have to be careful to let out line slowly or your bait can foul. You don't see the ability to back reel on many spinning reels these days, but one of the OG uses of the back reel function on a spinning reel was for letting out trolling line.