Trolling RV question

[iraevski]

Originally Posted by jimmythegreek

I agree with all the posts, but I do it a little different. I dont rly use leadcore cause I dont need it, I either run downriggers for lakers and stack a line for trout, or I use snap weights or inline weights. I use my trolling combos for lots of other duties so leadcore would make little use to me as I mainly troll live bait and usually for stripers, hard fighting fish put a hurting on leadcore. But in ur instance I would do the same setup on all ur leadcore rods and hopefully u have line counters, trolling is all about being able to reproduce whats working, and knowing where ur lure is. U still didnt say what lure u plan on running, so thats gonna play into the setup too. I personally like long leaders, unless Im tieing to mono. mono to floro is 5-6 ft, in clear water like the valley I personally would go 20ft minimum prob more like 50ft. Trout can be very finicky and line shy, 8# seaguar is my RV/MC leader line, for lakers I go 12# floro off 12# mono on downriggers. To see fish 10-20ft down on your graph u are going right over them, ur cone angle is very small, if they are in open water and you are sure its fish then they are trout. If u have a humminbird and the fish ID thing is telling u its fish, it may not be, u wanna use raw sonar data to determine actual fish and bait balls. If you have tattle flags on your planers send them out a ways, 75ft or so is good for a single set, if I run 4 boards I go 60 on insides and 100-110 on outsides, of course if the water is glass and bluebird skies I go further. If your trolling a spoon 3 colors at 1.5mph w a 50ft leader will put u down close to 18ft so its usually best to fish higher than ur marks by a few feet, try one board 2 colors and one board 3 colors and see what works.

thank you Jimmy. i will try this out. i am planning to use warrior spoons and rapala j9 and j11. probably run 2 boards to start with. i also have a downrigger, might try that too. as someone else mentioned, i don't want to hug bottom with the downrigger as the depth changes quite a bit and i will get snagged. i am not seeing anything on the bottom, not sure where the lakers are supposed to be. i might need a better sonar unit. right now i am running a garmin echo 200. dont really have the cash for $500+ unit

[jimmythegreek]

What I usually do is setup 4 boards and run them all with spoons/cowbells except one and ill run a fly/dodger combo or a rapala usually size 7 or 9 on it, those target 15-20 ft down looking for rainbows/browns up high. Theres not many of em left in RV the majority of fish u catch are lakers, they are everywhere. To target them u need to raise ur gain and zoom in on ur bottom 1/3 of screen to see them, they look like the bottom on regular finders unless they are up off the bottom a little feeding/active. They arent very line shy an u can run short lead lengths of 15-20ft back on ur downrigger ball and literally hug bottom. If you have 2 downriggers run a single or stack 10-15ft off bottom for active fish and keep on the other one adjusting to the depths, out in the open the bottom changes slowly, I often bump bottom w the ball and raise it a few feet keeping it close, this is how I get most lakers, just set ur drag on DR right in case and use high drag spoon/flasher combos to keep line up and tight. OR troll around and mark any bottom marks u see and go back and hit em with a binsky or crippled herring or whatever jigs u like, the lakers love jigs. Can even send a shiner down w a heavy sinker, they are eating machines

[Capt. Lou]

All very good trolling info just bear in mind u said ur after trout not lakers or other species.
just check some older logs I had from mid sixties to rouhgly late seventies when I turned to the big lk ! I landed over two hundred trout over 3#'s mostly browns. Did not keep track of stockers .
Thses were caught in local lks before all the introduction of sripers. musky, lakers etc. Most RV since I lived close by for yrs. Others lks Hoptacong, Greenwood , Swartswood, SR & Paupack.
Spent hundreds of Hrs trolling just for trout sometimes yr ruod. never used the riggrs since at that time their development and use was geared to GT Lakes.
My set ups were designed after the Fingers Lks deep trollers who wer very temp concience. Back thrn it was copper & SG rigs.
The majority my big trout those over 5#'s were taken via the LC rigs I described always guided ny temps period.
I used to use an King & Furuno paper machine on GT Lakes to find fish, outline bottom & monitor ball depth. Note on larger bodies of water ur DR ball usually has a minimum of 10% scope when trolling ove 50' ft or so. , u can probably overcome this today woith braid .
When I set up with DR I always allowed for that & I knew exactly where that ball depth was via my dedicated stern machine. Prior used the Lowarance grn box on all local waters since it was the only FF available & pretty dam good !
That DR also had my tremp probe cable to reflrct I stayed within my chosen range & reflected ant temp changes so I could adjust.
Locally I only monitored temp ranges & used the LC outfits too take all my big trout.
I always preferred a presentation that would be temp precise & get my lure away from the boat. Those days trollers on the valley were few and far between, so I understand some changes maybe required to take TROUT consistently over what I practiced many moons ago.
However some things never change & thats the temps certain fish will remain in to feed & thrive.
If u learn to fish by degrees & how to classify which species R where then u will fish correctly for trout.
FF R great to find fish & outline bottom contours, learn to incorporate temp into that equation of sought species then u can improve catches
Just a footnote most of my local big TROUT caught April to June prior to thermo setting up & immediately after !
This time of year with possible Lk turnover occuring was the worst. Since as cool water drops fish can now scatter throughtout ranges & leave their thermo home.
hence stagger & cover vertial ranges rather than horizontal water. Also learn to use ur FF to show active fish instead of just fish. Watch for upward streaks not just logs in water.Sometimes u only get ashort time of active feeding so watch for it ,otherwuisr in for long days!
All my big local trout , no lakers than taken 20' plus feet ,spring only until July!
In my opinion if U R after trout with the exception of lakers then learn to monitor temps & rely on outfits that will get lure down & away from boat & dont rely on lureS that everyone uses ,fish see those day after day!
Spoons accounted for 80% of my big fish not to say plugs dont excel on certain days ,always experiment !
Good Luck !
PS I believe in & used SOL periods to guide me to active fish time!! I firmly belive moon phases can get u prime feeds not always but when it occurs it can make UR day as can choppy water & overcast days!!