First experience with long line trolling.
Well as anyone who has been following my previous posts knows this is a year of first for my wife and I when it comes to fishing. Our first owning a boat, our first fishing the Yadkin lake chain, our first using electronics and our first trying new techniques to catch fish.
To date we have only had success night fishing, and even that was after considerable reading on the forum, watching YouTube videos and considerable help and input from forum members. We finally dialed in the light set up, rod and reels and technique to get a good healthy start on filling our freezer with tasty Crappie meat.
Well as the air temps have plummeted at night time so has our interest in going fishing. Neither of like being cold and the prospect of sitting in the cold air on an aluminum boat surrounded by cold water waiting on a fish with a slowed metabolism just doesn’t appeal to us. So back to the research on how to accomplish a feat that we have never done, how to catch crappie in the daylight
My search lead me to long line trolling, trolling crankbaits and slow vertical trolling or spider rigging. After going through several articles, forum posts and videos of each technique and equipment requirements I narrowed the results, by asking myself how much do I want to spend to try out this new to us technique and how well would each technique work for my wife and myself on our boat.
Long story short and if you read the title of this thread you already know which we chose to try.
My next door neighbor has been trolling for years and occasionally talks about how the technique works with me at the fence line. He has given me some jig heads that he uses and even recommended plastic bait that he likes. Little did he know that I was actually listening.
So on 11/28 we went out to Badin for our first attempt at trolling. We fished a part of the lake that we have never successfully fished. My wife was not convinced on using plastic bait so we used only small minnows on the jig heads. We trolled for about 2.5 hours and caught six 10-12 inch crappie, 2 bass that were 13&15 inches, 3 striper that were 14-16 inches and a half dozen perch. Hey wait a minute; we just caught fish in the daylight on less than optimal gear with a technique we are just starting to learn. WT mid 50’s, air temp 70, 6 lbs. line and dual rig with 1/8 walleye head #2 sickle hook on bottom tied with a Pitzen knot and slightly smaller #4 minnow head regular hook on top tied with a loop knot. Our first hook up was a 13 inch striper on one pole and a double hook up with a 15 inch striper and 15 inch bass on the 2nd pole.
11/29 wife wanted to go back to Badin and try again. Again fished parts of the lake we have never fished before. This time we used only plastics for 5.5 hours. 13 crappie all 10-12 inches. Half dozen striper 12-17 inches, dozen perch and 2 really stupid blue gills and 1 small bass. Wife really likes trolling now, and cannot believe we caught that many fish without minnows. Both blue gill were caught while sitting at anchor cutting and unfouling lines courtesy of the bigger stripers, with a single jig just sitting in the water about 1 foot deep.
What worked for us was. 6 rods (2) 12 and (4) 9 foot rods. 6lbs. test and dual jig heads. 11/28 all minnows and 11/29 best colors were Kalin’s 2” acid rain triple threat and Bobby Garland electric chicken shad. Trolling speed was .8 to 1 mph by GPS.
Since we were trolling with our MinnKota Terrova trolling motor I can see the advantage of having a trolling plate for our outboard. So now I need to look into one of those for a 40hp mercury.
