I can vouch for trolling a Floating Rapala behind a 3 -way swivel with a weight or a bottom bouncer. This setup works very well. I did it for years to search for walleye concentrations. Once I found them I then went to jigging or lindy rigging a worm harness or leech floating spinner rig.

I have since gone to trolling deeper diving cranks and skimming the bottom to find where wally schools are. And I mostly now just slow troll my worm/leech floating  spinner harness rigs with a 1/2 oz to 3/4 oz Lindy Rig setup. 

I used to bring up a whole flat or 500 nightcrawlers to Quetico and did super on big walleye with Lindy rigged floating glow spinner harnesses. In fact, I used to outfish my counterparts who trolled shadraps, thundersticks, etc.  However, since the livebait ban, I have had to resort to GULP and my numbers and size seem to have fallen off at least 25%.  I am still trying to refine my Lindy rig setup to get back to the old days.

At the end of June Iam planning to try more hard plastic trolling to get walleyes. I have to thank some QJ members like  Jaximus, and Mastertangler who have given me lots of excellent advice on the art of trolling for walleyes ( and Lakers). Can't wait to go north.

i was putzing around behind the new canoe i got this last weekend with some spinners and different harnesses. i really like the looks of a two willow blades (#4 white) with 6 pearl beads between each of them with a slow death hook sunk into a 4" white ringworm 15" back.(i bent the hooks a little bit more to give a more drastic swirl) the willows churned up some really nice rhythm and got that ringworm swirling and pulsing. the lake was super crowded and boaters dont really respect canoes, so i didnt really get a chance to fish it. its hard for me to not troll cranks so my spinners end up as tackle box clutter as well.

one additional thought on the spinner rig with that slo death twirly hook. IMHO if you don't rig with 2 ball bearing swivels, one at the hook and one up the line perhaps at the weight, I have a feeling you will be sorry .

My go to spinner rig is a Cabelas Super Glow in the Dark floating 2 floats, 2 hook worm harness or single hook with a Gulp leech. In stained waters like Kawnipi these glow in the dark harnesses do real well. I like  blue, chartreuse and pink.

I adjust snell length depending how far walleye are off the bottom. Most prepackaged glow rigs come with a 48 inch snell ...I normally shorten it up to about 30 inches on average when trolling 2 mph.

I use a quick change Lindy swivel ahead of the spinner rig to reduce line twist.

I just don't think Gulp worms /leeches give you the great action of a live worm or leech. Maybe what Jaximus is suggesting ( slow death set-up) might give more action than my artificial setup.  I think more action  is needed many times when fish are neutral or negative.

Excellent point about the sand worms Jax. (I think I might have saw the same thing on utube). I too think the gulp stuff is overrated (although I did have my largest smally ever at over 6lbs eat a gulp leech........it threw the hook right at the boat while laying on its side.....oh the pain, what a fish) but perhaps the sand worms would be the ticket with what wally13 is proposing. Might be a slay'em set up. And yea, I am a bit concerned that Mr. Bear might just take my whole tackle bag because of smelly gulp. Yikes!

I tend to change rigs and lures and line in the first 10 or 15 minutes of starting until I have on what I feel is the right combo of line class and presentation. Then I can fish for hours with the same thing or until conditions change. Pretty common for me to tie something on and make 5 casts and change only to do it all over again with the new lure 5 casts later.