Successful trolling doesn’t mean hitting the GPS speed recommended for the fish you’re targeting and staying there all day. It means tinkering and adjusting until you find consistent bites.
Still, the following tips will help you boat more fish without spending a dime on expensive technology.
When trolling large lakes, you need to account for underwater currents which change what happens at your lure. More often than not, the lures below a boat trolling at 2.5 MPH are not actually travelling at 2.5 MPH, thus jeopardizing the action of the bait. The diagrams below illustrate how subsurface currents can change your presentation, as well as how to use your rods to estimate current direction and speed.
It’s all about the bend: Try to remember the bend in your rod just before a fish hit and duplicate that throughout the day. It means you were going the right speed. I use my Dipsy Diver rods as my underwater speedometer while salmon fishing, but any rod trolling flatlined bodybaits can provide the same information. Just pay attention to the bend.
Originally published in the April 2021 issue of Ontario OUT of DOORS
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