Trolling

Trolling is a technique in which the forward motion of the boat is used to pull your lure through the water and thus impart action to the lure. Sometimes trolling is better than casting but only because it is the most efficient way to deal with some of the situations you will face. Whenever you encounter any of the previously mentioned patterns in which the muskies are suspended, then trolling is the most effective method of presentation. If you are faced with extremely large structures, or very deep fish, trolling is once again the superior method.

Most anglers think that all there is to trolling is dragging a lure behind your boat, however, nothing could be further from the truth. Trolling, as practiced by an expert, is a precise method of presentation. There are two prime objectives when performing a trolling pass: depth control and speed control.

Depth control is the ability of the troller to control the depth at which a lure is running. This allows you to run your lures at the depth at which you either suspect or know the muskies to be. Muskies are primarily sight feeders. The physical location of their eyes (on the sides but towards the top of their heads) means that they can see things above them better than to the sides or below them. It is important, then, that you present your lures slightly above the muskies and within their range.

The question is, "How do you know exactly at what depth the muskies are?" The simplest and most accurate method is with electronic equipment like a flasher or a graph recorder. If you are marking baitfish, run your lures at those depths as the muskies will suspend just below the baitfish.

If you can't get a hold of electronic equipment, Brendon Reid, the famous St. Lawrence River guide, has an unconventional solution. He locates the "magic depth," i.e., the depth where sunlight penetration is greatly diminished, by lowering a white coffee mug on a string that is marked in feet until it disappears from sight. After checking the string to see how deep it disappears, he doubles that depth to determine the depth at which he will run his lures. For example, if the mug disappears at the eight-foot level, Brendon would run his lures 16 feet deep.

But if you're not marking anything, where do you start? It has been my personal experience that you can find a starting depth to run your lures by simply understanding water clarity. While not as precise as Brendon's method, it can give you a starting point. In dingy or dark water, muskies must remain fairly close to the surface so there is enough light for them to see their forage. In water with visibility of two feet or less most of the muskies will be in the top ten feet of water. Lures running from four to six feet should be right on the money. In stained or moderately clear water with visibility from six to eight feet, most of the muskies will be from ten to 20 feet deep. I have found that marking fish in the ten- to 15-foot depths makes for good sport but from 15 feet down, the fish are not aggressive enough to provide the consistent catches I like. In extremely clear water (where visibility is greater than eight feet) it has been my experience that the most catchable fish will be in the ten- to 15-foot depths. It is not unusual to mark fish much deeper than this but I don't know of anyone who catches them consistently at this level.

These guidelines may serve you well but you are probably still wondering about how you are to know precisely at what depth your lures are running. Most lures have a specific depth range. A Swim Whiz or Believer will run from ten to 12 feet deep when attached on the deep eye. Variation in running depth is usually caused by line drag depending on line diameter. You should spend some time establishing just how deep each of your various lures will run on the type of line you are using.

The first step in this process is marking your line in ten-foot increments. This allows you to know precisely how much line you have out. Use a waterproof marker to ensure your marks won't wash off. Select a lure and then run 30 feet of line out behind the boat. Start trolling at a point where you know the exact depths, if you don't have a depth sounder, until you hit bottom. That will tell you the depth that lure runs on 30 feet of line. Repeat the process using 60 and 90 feet of line. Once you have established these depths for all the lures you will be trolling with, write it down in chart form and keep it in your tackle box.

Few lures will dive beyond 15 feet without some sort of weight. It may be necessary to add as much as a pound of lead to get some of these big lures down an extra ten feet. Once again, you will have to experiment to find out how much weight you need with a specific lure. You may think that this takes a lot of effort, especially when a downrigger an give you precise depth control immediately. However, downriggers have a serious drawback. The slack line that develops when the line is pulled from the release seems to create a problem with setting the hook. It seems that most of the fish that hit on a downrigger are lost.

When trolling for muskies, many anglers run far more line than is necessary. Use as short a line as possible without affecting your depth control. Muskies are quite often caught right in the prop turbulence of an outboard motor. The short lines also give you better control of the fish.

After you understand depth control and how to achieve it, your next step is to understand the importance of speed control. Speed is the rate of motion that imparts action to your lure. You may wish to run your lures at a very slow speed or a very fast speed or perhaps at some speed in between. The two determining factors in selecting the appropriate speed are weather and water temperature.

Fish are cold-blooded animals. The rate at which their metabolism works is determined by the temperature of the surrounding water. In cold water a fish's reactions are very slow, therefore you should troll your lures at very slow speeds. In the heat of summer, troll at a much faster speed because the fish's reaction is not affected unless the water temperatures are extremely high. Local prevailing weather conditions may cause me to make further adjustments to the speed at which I am trolling. In summer, a period of extremely hot weather would cause me to increase the speed. A period of extremely cold weather in the summer might make me slow down if I felt that the water temperature was dropping significantly. In the fall, a prolonged period of extremely warm weather would mean an increase in speed but it would be less drastic than in summer.

As a rule of thumb, I try to troll at approximately three or four miles per hour in the cold-water periods. If faced with a significant warming trend, I speed up to five to seven miles per hour. In the warmer summer months, I usually troll at approximately seven miles per hour, however, a period of extremely warm weather might find me trolling from ten to 12 miles per hour.

Speed is an important trigger. It is very unusual to be on the water when the fish are feeding, so the smart angler tries to place the bait as close as possible to the fish and uses speed to trigger a strike from the fish. You don't want the fish to have time to think about whether or not it wants your lure, but to react to your lure!

Another factor that can increase your success is to make a lot of turns. Every time you turn you change the speed of your lures, and sometimes an increase or decrease in speed can trigger a following fish into striking.

Click to Listen!