Tips on trolling and top-water lures

[Arcax]

Hello everyone,

 

I am headed out to Balsam Lake this weekend and wanted to try different lures/techniques.

 

I have an open question on trolling - I know it's basically casting your line out and driving your boat back and forth but how do ensure your lure reaches depths of 10, 20 or 30 feet? Whenever I have tried it in the past, I notice the speed of the boat will cause the lure to rise up in the water. Is it a weight thing e.g. using heavier lures? Or do you need a swivel where you connect a sinker on the bottom segment and lure on the other part? Any tips for a trolling newbie?

 

My second question is top water lures e.g. frogs -what are good times of day to use them? I am guessing either early or late day in areas around lily pads.

 

Thanks a bunch!

[OutdoorDan]

There are trolling lures such as the Rapala Taildancer that will get you down to up to 30 feet trolling. You can also use a mini dipsy diver and that will get you to about ~20 feet down depending on how much line you have out. Or, you can use a 3-way rig. For this you get a 3-way swivel, tie your main line to one end, tie a lead to the lure off the perpendicular end, and tie a lead to an egg sinker to the remaining end and that will get any lure down. Lots of options, I'm sure other guys will chime in with some more.

[mercman]

Or use bottom bouncer rigs.

http://www.walleyesinc.com/walleyeinc2/rickolsen2.html

 

 

[mike rousseau]

The key to achieving the depth your looking for is using light line... If you run 10lb braid when trolling and let out plenty of line you will get very close to the depths on the crankbait

box...

[Garry2Rs]

Many years ago I had a book called Precision Trolling. There is an even better edition out now, that you can order on line. These books give you the running depth for all popular lures at a given line length. The data was based on a standard line. I believe it was 10 pound Trilene XT in my book. Trilene's XT is a large diameter line for it's strength. Ten pound is .014, which is around 12 pound test XL and about 50 pond test in Fireline braid.

 

Each lure was given a graph. The graph showed the running depth for each foot of set-back...The length of line let out behind the boat. At some point each lure would stop going down...Most of the smaller diving lures that I used then, like the Shad Rap SR05, SR07 or SR08, would reach their maximum depth of about 11 or 12 ft on 125 to 150 feet of line. Beyond that line-length, water pressure against the line, would cause the bait to rise.

 

Surprisingly, trolling speed had very little effect on the maximum running depth.

If you use braid or mono of a smaller diameter than the XT you will get as much as 10% more depth but as you can see that's only an extra foot of depth. Whatever you use within reason won't change things very much. I don't think Fluorocarbon was tested in my book, but I suspect that the results would be about the same. It's not whether the line wants to float or sink, it's line diameter. Fatter line gets pushed up sooner, thinner line stays down and the lure digs deeper.

 

I gave the book away a long time ago, but here are some hints. Today the max. running depth is marked on most lure boxes. Rapala has a small booklet that uses this same data, and shows graphs for most of their lures. Since Rapala uses the same data you might get one of their booklets for a fraction of the cost of the trolling book.

 

Since I found 125 to 150 ft of set-back was normally where my lures ran their deepest, and since I didn't have a line-counter reel, to make life easier I put a brightly coloured bobber-stopper knot on my line at 150ft. Then I hand-pulled 50 yards (150ft) of line and tightened the stopper knot. I left the long ends of the knot-string untrimmed, to make it easier to see. After that I just ran the line out until the knot came off the reel and I knew I had the right set-back. If I stopped to cast the knot never came off the reel.

Good luck

Garry2rs

[OhioFisherman]

It never hurts to have a top water lure, frog, buzzbait, popper, on a rod ready to throw. Generally early morning, evening, night, but the fish will give you a much better idea.

 

I fished a lot at night, the thinking is a noisy surface lure? I caught far more bass on other lures at night, they have no problem finding a 4 inch ringworm or 1/8th ounce jig and pig in the dark.

[adolson]

My second question is top water lures e.g. frogs -what are good times of day to use them? I am guessing either early or late day in areas around lily pads.

 

I'm still new to topwater myself, but I can speak a little about my experience with the Hula Popper lure. I used it in the daytime, evening, and night (still too much of a night-hawk to go out in early morning - I want to though!), and all three times of day it's produced fish for me - including my first ever bass (seen in avatar) and my first night-time catch (another nice sized bass). With that particular lure, in my opinion anyhow, the key is to use it when the water's still. If there's much wind, I'll go for something else.

 

Other lures, like a frog and Jitterbug and whatever else I am unfamiliar with so far, as I'm still learning and expanding my basscabulary.

[Toccobender]

I am a firm believer in always having a topwater on deck. My fav is the rapala floating minnow black back.Tends to do the trick for me any time of the day, and there is nothing better than watching the show when u get into some fish!!

Edited July 28, 2011 by Creek Creeper