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Posts: 22
Location: SouthWest PA | Looking for some advice around trolling with PLANER BOARDS.
What type of lures work best (Do not drive the board underwater)
How much line can you put under board? Can you Short-line troll?
Successful tips would be gladly appreciated
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Posts: 3240
Location: Racine, Wi | If you do a search here, you'll find some pretty good information on this subject, but I'll help ya the best I can while not getting too long winded. (PM me if you want too).
There are lots of options for trolling with boards. You can run just about anything behind them as there are different types of boards (in-line and mast systems). I'm assuming you're talking in-line though. I've run baits up to 14" jakes behind the boards and the only thing you'll have happen is the board will start dragging back a bit in your spread. You can let more line out on your board rods to keep them away from your other baits to help ease the issue of running baits into each other. When salmon fishing, I've run weights up to 10 ozs with no issues off of boards along with flashers and flys and I've never had a board sink.
As far as line off of the board goes, you can run short or long lines. I run them as short as 5-10' all the way back to 80-100' depending on the bait and the depth I'm looking to get out of a bait. You can also run snap weights on your lines to get your baits down faster on shorter lines. The Lake St Clair boys are good with those set ups for sure.
In the spring is a good time to get used to runnig boards and short lines as you can run shallower and the weeds are typically lower so you won't have issues with having to clear your baits all the time. Plus fish are fun on short lines. Every spring I do quite a bit of shortline trolling in and outside of spawning bays.
As far as boards go, the Off Shore and Walleye boards seem to be the standard. I've used them both and like both of them, so it comes down to personal preference.
I'll leave it there for someone to run off with, but hopefully that helps get ya started. |
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Posts: 344
Location: Musky Country | tuffy1 hit it on the head. My brother and I are avid planer board users and everything he mentioned is right on. We troll open water with snap weights and have trolled big jakes and grandmas without a hitch. |
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Posts: 2024
| I have a question, too. I'm running Church Tackle boards and sometimes find they don't plane very well. I'll run anything from Wiley style cranks and Invaders to Grandmas and Jakes, but often times the board does a half @$$ job of planing. I've experimented with moving the weight around a bit, but is there a particular setting that seems to work best (i.e. furthest notch back)? Also, I run rail-mount Down Easters which, due to how the rails were installed, can't be tilted up very far. Is this part or maybe most of my problem with not getting the boards to plane well? |
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Posts: 3240
Location: Racine, Wi | Sean, I would think that not having your rod tip up to high would cause the board to run lower in the water, which would pull it out farther so that shouldn't be an issue. With the weights, I think you have to move it up closer to the front of the board when using harder pulling baits to get it to nose down more and grab more water. The reason your board wouldn't plane as much is due to not enough of the nose of the board grabbing water so moving the weight forward should help with that. Of course some baits are just hard pulling and you will still get some drag.
I'm pretty new to the walleye boards as I usually ran the Off Shores, but now I am running both so I have some learn'n to do with the walleye boards.
With your rod holders, did you try to flip the holder the opposite way (not sure if that makes sense)? I know if I have my down easters on a certain way, I can only raise them so far, but I can point them into the water further. I just flip them around when mounting them and then I can get the rod in the air more when running boards. I wish I had some pics, but hopefully that makes sense if you know how the down easters work. |
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Posts: 2024
| Joel,
Good idea! I can point my rod-tips almost at a 90 degree angle into the water which is great for running deep-divers right under the boat. Range of motion from 0 to 90 degrees (down) with the holder mounted like that is great, but like you said I think if I flip it around I'll get the same angle except going up. The holder as it is now points the rod like this --> /, and when flipped should point it like this --> \ . |
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Posts: 3240
Location: Racine, Wi | That's exactly it. They are pretty versitile holders. I know when I fish Lake Michigan I need to change how they are mounted so I can keep the tips up as I don't run rods tips in the water for salmon, but when I troll for 'ski's I have to switch 4 of the 6 back so I can run the tips down. |
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Posts: 1270
| Tuffy pretty well nailed it IMHO. The only thing I will add is to not be afraid to run short leads off the boards to your baits. A lot of time I think the board actually attracts the fish. I have caught walleyes with as little as 3' of line out behind the board. If a spooky walleye doesn't mind the board I don't think an aggresive and inquisative musky will mind it one bit. |
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Posts: 344
Location: Musky Country | Good point reelman. I seen where muskies are spooked by the boat when trolling and just putting on a planer board and getting the bait away from the boat can be the difference between a good day trolling and a non-productive day. |
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