Trolling with your trolling motor?

[Abbeysdad]

I know most bass fishing is to fly like the wind to a likely spot, sneak in and work shallow cover and structure, most often using the TM to adjust and/or maintain position...

I'm most often fishing one of the larger finger lakes in central new york. This lake has all different species. In addition to smallmouth and largemouth bass, there are all panfish, lake trout, landlocked salmon and well, it's deep enough there might be a whale or two in there

So anyways, here and there I have trolled with the TM set straight ahead (different speeds), using the big motor as a rudder. I let lines run way out behind the boat (usually swim baits). But honestly haven't caught much yet doing this.

Does anybody actually use their trolling motor for true trolling?

[cassidyta]

I most often use this technique for trout with a spoon or a cast master.
With some of my larger swimbaits I will use that technique from time to time. (Casting 4 oz baits gets tiresome. The key is to find a speed that allows your bait to reach the desired depth. I don't adjust speed to often but will move the rod forward for a quick burst.

[keithdog]

Being that my boat has only a trolling motor and I fish lakes of less than 100 acres, I often will use the motor to troll from spot to spot if I am moving from one part of the lake to another. I figure why not? I often tie into a fish doing this. I am going to be trolling with a spinnerbait in shallow or weedy water and a crankbait, usually a Shad Rap in deeper or open water.

[Bender]

I tried this for lakers and LL Salmon when I lived way up there in NY. I never had any luck but I went so far as to make a rod holder that went into my rear seat hole and used Dipsy Divers and Jet Divers to try to get down there. I think that after the spring most of those fish are very deep and a downrigger is really the only way to accurately attack them. I rigged up a heavy flipping rod with 50# braid and tied that to the dipsey and then used lighter lines for my leader(s).

Trolling up closer to the surface might net you some walleyes or something though. I've never tried for them on Erie but I know that a lot of guys troll for them out there near the surface behind the boat and using planer boards.

It's a whole different style of fishing and I wasn't ready to drop a lot of money to get into it. For that it would probably help if you went first with somebody who knows how to fish in this way. I tried to figure it out myself and failed.

[rescue.tech]

Well not too often for bass, but there are a ton of Crappie caught doing this very same thing. In fact they call it spider rigging or even long lining. You might check out Crappie.com. They are all about the Crappie the best tasting fish out there. Sometimes they have up to 12 poles out at one time. I am not much for it I think its kinda cheating when you have that many lines out. I also think it would get boring going back and forth over the water just waiting for a fish to bite and the he gets pulled to the surface and then just crank them in.

Now I love Crappie fishing but I am more on the lines of one or maybe two poles out and fishing the structure. But everyone has there methods.

Later
Clint