Shrimp Walker Review: Catching Fish or Fishermen?

I’ve been seeing ads all over the place for the Shrimp Walker. Its unique design and fish-catching potential got my attention, so I decided to pick some up and try them for myself. In this review, I’ll show you how it’s designed to work and how well it performed for me in one of my favorite redfish and trout areas. 

Note: Salt Strong does not accept any payment for our reviews, and we are not sponsored by any brands, including the makers of the Shrimp Walker. The opinions reflected are Matt’s objective thoughts after using the product within its design intent.

Shrimp Walker Review Video

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Pros

•  Keeps the shrimp alive without piercing it with the hook
• Triggered plenty of strikes

Cons

• Holder isn’t 100% effective
• Hook gap is too small for a consistent hookup ratio
• Hook strength is questionable if you get into larger fish 

Shrimp Walker Design

The Shrimp Walker’s foundation is what looks like a combination of a J-hook and a no-offset circle hook. It’s 47mm long and 15 mm at its widest point.

Attached is the holder, and this is what makes the whole thing work differently than other live shrimp rigs I’ve used. You insert the shrimp’s horn through a small hole in the front and push it forward until you can slip the rear ledge under the front head’s shell.

Once attached, the idea is that you can cast and retrieve your shrimp without losing it.

One caveat here, though. The size works for medium and large shrimp as well as crayfish for those of you fishing freshwater. At the moment, there are no models that accommodate small and select/XL sizes.

Shrimp Walker Performance

Fishing in one of my most productive areas, I had high hopes for the Shrimp Walker as I targeted redfish and trout. While the concept is a cool idea, I came across some things that concerned me.

First, and most importantly, my hookup ratio was poor. Despite getting plenty of hits, I only landed two fish on the day. Both of those were hooked near the edge of the mouth, leaving me with little confidence that I’d be able to land larger redfish without them breaking free.

The issue seems to be the hook gap. If it were wider, I think it would have been able to get a more solid and consistent hookset on the fish I was targeting. With a standard circle hook or J-hook in a little bigger size, I believe I would have had much better success.

One other concern with the hook is its strength. Even though it says it has a 50-pound strength test rating, and it did fine for the fish I was catching, I’m not confident it can handle something like an overslot redfish.

The holder was mostly successful. Shrimp were able to get off with a hard tail flick before I casted occasionally. While it did hold my shrimp well most of the time, know that it doesn’t have a 100% success rate.

Conclusion

So, does the Shrimp Walker do a better job of catching fish or fishermen? In its current design, it seems to do a better job of catching fishermen—at least for my target species.

That said, taking another look at the hook could be a big improvement. By going with a stronger, wider gap hook instead of the one it currently uses, the Shrimp Walker would likely have more success for inshore saltwater applications.

The other side of the coin is whether this product will improve your fishing success by keeping shrimp alive and active longer. When I’m fishing live shrimp, I’m not worried about keeping it alive on the hook, I’m trying to put it right in front of the fish’s mouth and it’s not usually on there very long. For me, properly hooking a shrimp gives me a better chance at getting the strike and landing the fish.

What do you think? Have you used the Shrimp Walker or have any thoughts on it? Let me know down in the comments along with any other products you’d like to see us review!

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