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| kind of new at trolling boat will go 4.0 miles that is as slow as i can go and not sure on how far back my lures shold be thanks ! |
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Posts: 262
| That is a very vague question. Depends how deep you are trying to fish. |
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| about 20'  |
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| kind of new at talking on here i am fisrt time guest  |
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Posts: 8842
| I don't know much about trolling, as I've only spent a handful of days doing it, in someone else's boat. But from what I gathered, every different lure will dive to a different depth. Some lures will not run right at faster speeds. How much line you let out is dependent on what lure you use, where it is in your spread, how much line you have out, what kind of line you are using, AND how fast you are going.
I always thought it was just a matter of throwing a few lures out and driving around. I guess you may stumble into a fish here and there doing that. But I'd suggest spending some time with someone who is an effective troller and asking them questions until they get angry and tell you to shut up already. |
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Posts: 4
| It really all depends on the lures you are trolling and the type of line you are using. If you want to get your lures down to 20' try finding a flat bottom without structure around 20' deep and make a couple of passes until your lures hit bottom. Note the amount of line left out. Also, it's a good idea to always keep a bait in the prop wash. |
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Posts: 192
Location: Quebec, Canada | A very useful tool for musky trolling is Musky Mike's Trolling Secrets book. It gives you the exact amount of line you need to have out (you need a line counter or some sort of way to count the line you have out) to run different specific lures at different exact depth. That way, you can identify different water layers in which you want to troll and once you catch a fish, you can return to that same exact depth. It will also help you to do precision trolling if you want to bump the bottom. Per example if you know you are going to run a flat that is 10' deep and want to bump the breakline, you can set your lure at 11/12 feets, do your S turns, the outside lure will speed up, dive deeper and bump the bottom which can trigger a strike.
A good start i guess if you have 3 line out would be to have a lure running 5 feet under the top of the water, an other lure running in a different water layer depending on how deep you are and the middle one running short line in the prop wash (it attracts the fishes). Keep in mind that if your lures are running deeper than the muskies, they will not see it and bite won't bite.
Edited by Drakl 10/28/2013 7:27 PM
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Posts: 20263
Location: oswego, il | Find a mikes trolling secrets book. Its all subjective with your lure selection as far as line out. Learn it, a great way to learn a lake but you will be egged the second you enter Vilas or Oneida counties. |
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Posts: 1169
Location: New Hope MN | find sand at the depth you want your lures to run. put on desired lure. Let out known amount of line. Troll at desired speed. If lure doesn't bounce bottom, let more line out. Repeat until lure bounces on the bottom. This will tell you how deep that lure will run at that speed.
or buy Mike's Trolling Secrets. |
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Location: Minneapolis | How accurate is the Mikes trolling secrets book? Seems like factors such as leader, type of line and speed could really affect depth. |
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Posts: 2097
| It tells you what line and speed. |
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Posts: 1169
Location: New Hope MN | TC MUSKIE - 10/29/2013 10:19 AM
How accurate is the Mikes trolling secrets book? Seems like factors such as leader, type of line and speed could really affect depth.
I think you are correct that these affect depth. However, if the book gets you accuracy of +/- 1ft, that's a very nice tool to have. |
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Posts: 373
Location: Maine Township, MN | You can always add lead weights to get deeper. Trial and error. As others said. Find a flat bottom on a slow day, drink some beer and have some fun testing! |
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Posts: 688
Location: Northern IL | First of all your boat only trolling down to 4mph might be a small problem, just saying... I'm guessing it's also not a tiller, another possible issue.
What you have for a trolling set up, the lures stated running depth, the line, the type of reel and the amount of line on the spool etc. will not be listened in books. Every lure that you put in the water MUST be checked for straightness to get out it's maximum depth. And to keep you and your second rod or your partners lures from running into one another... To get to 20' do as 3rivers suggested and troll a hard bottom area in the desired depth and see what it takes to hit bottom, very simple to do. It works in 30' and 40' as well.
If someone asked how can I hit 20', "I'd tell them it can be done 2 ways, with mono or single strand wire". "Mono for a more common line length and the wire because I'm feeling lazy, ha ha! Braids are somewhere in between but will NOT reach the deep depths. On mono a big Ernie works just fine, 20lb and 75-80' and your right there. I also like the new JB1 spoonplug when on muskie or pike waters, it a big lure and gets down a little bit quicker. This bait is very predictable in its running depth and does not need to be tuned often, not to mention its an extremely durable lure and can take a beating like no other! So far not only have we caught a lot of fish of many species but a lot of big fish because of its size.
When running single strand wire you can take the exact same bait that you run on mono, what ever it is and basically cut the line length in about half which makes getting down to the deeper depths easy to do.
Best of luck! |
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Posts: 3
| thanks for the help going to go hit the lake sat. jeffsbigdog |
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Posts: 3
| i have been casting lures for years iam 48years old and have just had a case of tendonitis and water temp. have droped to 60 degrees so i started trolling one of my old frends told me to start trolling give my arm a brake it sucks i like to be hammering the weed beds i have caught some trolling but trying to get better at it  |
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Posts: 1202
Location: Money, PA | So many variables to be visited with that question, especially if you're fishing in 20' of water. If you said you were fishing in 10 to 15' that would be different. In 20', you need to pay attention to what you see on your screen...What depth your marks are suspended in and go from there....That's how I would start in that depth.
Another variable would be the baits, line and speed you plan to run....lol....many people think trolling is for lazy people...on the contrary! Theres a science to trolling really....especially if you want to be successful at it, regardless of what anyone says. |
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Posts: 4
| I am pretty new to trolling myself and it def provides a nice break for you hands from casting all day everyday. I have been on Chautauqua before and seen guys trolling 5+ MPH and putting fish in the boat, at the same time we were putting fish in the boat at 3.5MPH. I've never tried trolling much faster than 4. My question is, is it better to start off slower and gradually increase trolling speed or the other way around? I would think that trolling faster during the warmer months would produce a lot more reaction strikes and trolling slower in the colder months would trigger slower moving fish to eat. |
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Posts: 1023
| I am not a big troller but I got a nice one last weekend with a bait about 15' back on a down rod.
We also hooked a fish 40' back too.
There is a lot more to trolling than it first seems. |
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Posts: 252
| Jeffsbigdog, I also am 48 and just this year developed a lingering case of tendonitis after spending 4 great days on a lake musky fishing and sleeping in my boat at night.
...anyway, I'm not much on going to the doctor or using any type of pain medication, but everyone kept telling me to go get a steroid shot. After feeling the pain for a couple of months and not having much luck with it getting any better, I finally relented and went and got the shot. After the shot and a week of taking it easy, the pain was gone. I hope it is gone for good. If you haven't tried it, you might consider getting a shot. I don't know if it works for tendonitis everywhere, but it worked in my forearm.
I also switched to doing a lot of trolling this year and have landed more fish this year than any other year. Good luck with getting rid of the tendonitis and catching more fish! |
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Posts: 4080
Location: Elko - Lake Vermilion | 50-70ft. back.... .... Any bait/Lure,..... Maybe even a frozen Chicken !
Most muskies caught trolling for me, are caught between 5-15 ft of water
There ya go !
Trolling is pretty simple.....
Edited by Top H2O 10/30/2013 9:16 PM
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Posts: 656
Location: Forest Lake, Mn. | As others have stated get a copy of Muskymike's Trolling Secrets book. I have a copy here. The book is set up as a chart for the various popular lures, Believers, Grandma's, Jake's, Depth Raiders, and many more besides. Each chart shows the maximum running depth for a given lure based upon line type. The amount of line needed to reach that depth varies. The types of line he used in his research are; #80 Power Pro, #100 Power Pro, #30 mono, #30 sevenstrand wire, #45 sevenstrand wire lines. Each line also lists line diameter for that line so if you're using something else and know it's diameter you can make a comparison. A thinner line diameter will run deeper so you'd need less line out to reach a given depth compared to his chart. A thicker diameter line will need more. A line counter reel helps eliminate guesswork and makes life easier.
A couple of quick examples. A 10 inch straight Believer on #80 Power Pro will need 84 feet of line to hit 20 feet deep but will only need 67 feet of #30 sevenstrand wire to hit that depth. A 13 inch straight Believer will need 60 feet of #80 Power Pro to hit 20 feet deep and only 53 feet of #30 sevenstrand to hit that depth. So you can see that the larger Believer needs less line out to hit that 20 foot depth. So it's a chart that's laid out for you and verified by scuba divers. I don't think a couple of examples will violate copyright. Do buy the book. It takes a lot of the guess work away for the popular muskie lures. He lists a trolling speed of 4 mph to achieve the results shown, which is a fairly common speed for trolling.
I use #50 pound Tuff Line on my trolling rods. I'd have to look and see what the diameter is but I suspect that I can use a few feet less line out to hit that same 20 foot depth listed in the chart because I suspect #50 Tuff will have a slightly smaller line diameter than the #80 Power Pro.
I would never bother with mono line for trolling because it has to much stretch in it. You can't feel the lure as well with mono and that stretch also effects lure running depth. Lures run shallower with mono. That is a disadvantage in most trolling situations because the more line behind the boat the harder it is to keep control, and track, of the lures. You want to troll with as little line out behind the boat as you can get away with for the depth of water your trying to get the lures to reach. The lure will more accurately follow the exact boat path with a shorter line out. |
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Posts: 2097
| I did better as a novice troller. When I began precision trolling I started to suck. Thinking about it all to much. |
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Posts: 371
Location: Dixon, IL | Good book wrote by Tom Gelb! He measure his lure on depth. Have to know how deep the water then when you feel your lure hit bottom then write note on your lure, length of line out and depth. It is lot of work but you will catch more fish if you know your lure at right depth. One time my son used his jointed Believer and not know how deep it go. He caught two big catfish that his lure was too close to the bottom. |
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Posts: 3
| thanks for the info i went to the doc and he gave me steroids and some pills for influmation still gritting my teeth but still fishing hard to get rest in the oil and gas work thanks jeffsbigdog |
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Posts: 1247
Location: On the Niagara River in Buffalo, NY | Your only fooling yourself if you think you can go by a book or hear say on how deep your lure is going to dive at a given trolling speed.First you can take two crankbaits of the same type and they may not run the same depth after making sure they track straight first.Why,because if wood the density can be different from one crankbait body to another,plastic baits the molding may be off giving a slight amount of more plastic in one place in the body etc. The only way to know how deep each crankbait will dive at different speeds is by putting them out till they touch bottom at that speed and depth.When you reach the depth wanted count the number of levelwind paw passes from one side of the reel to the other to determine how much line to put back out,on a line counter reel make sure the reel spool is full so you get the correct depth reading from one line counter reel to another,less line means less out on each revolution.Then record that info on white surgical tape and place that tape on the hanging compartment for that crankbait.Sometimes big muskies will not move a few short feet to take an offering,you must be in their face at the exact depth. |
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