Troling Motor and fishing

Do I need a troling motor or can I keep my bayliner at idel and trol that way... I am new to the fishing with a boat... I know it sounds stupid also how deep would you want your bait from the water? I was thinking about 10 ft or so and about 20 ft lead from the boat. Please help I have no idea what the hell I am doing....

Re: Troling Motor and fishing

It all depends what you are fishing for.

Re: Troling Motor and fishing

As far as the motor, there are a lot of people who troll with the big motor, if you can't go slow enough, use a drift sock or just drop a bucket behind the boat to slow down. Depth, distance from boat etc can be many many different things. All depends on what species you are after. It may be worth hiring a guide for a day to gain some experience. Different species need different depths and speeds. Also dependent on water condition, or season. There is a lot to learn if you want to be effective.

Re: Troling Motor and fishing

Plain and simple, you need to put the bait where the fish can see it. A fish finder is your best friends while trolling.

A fishes? eyes are on top of their heads. They can look up but they can?t look down. You want to put the bait in their face or slightly above their heads. It does you no good to troll your baits 20' down when the fish are at 10'. My short deep rods are back 65? and my long lines over 300?. Depth range from just a couple of feet below the surface to 35-40? depending on conditions

Re: Troling Motor and fishing

Dingbat is right on level of bait. As for trolling with your bayliner, If you can go about 1.5 mph then go for it. A trolling plate works good on some outboards, and I've known some people to use them on inboards also. It blocks the water coming off the prop, but be careful not to give the motor too much power, or you can break the cavitation plate. A fishfinder can tell you the depth the fish are, and you want to be 2 to 5 feet over them. Some fishfinders have speedometers on them, but they are not that accurate, or at least the ones I have used. A cheap hand held GPS can give you about the most accurate speed. A downrigger can get you down deeper for the deeper fish, but how much do you want to spend? You can also still fish from a boat, just like on shore, like for bass, or fly fish. The boat gives you a lot more options, I like Jigging for Mackinaw trout, or ling cod when I can, and that is still fishing about 200 ft deep.

Re: Troling Motor and fishing

If I were you, starting with very little knowledge of trolling, I'd get a good book from Amazon. You'd be amazed at the secrets people will give up in a book; I'm amazed how many people refuse to take advantage of it.

A good friend of my is responsible for getting me into fishing several years ago. The first thing I did when i realized how much I liked it was to get several books on fishing. When I told him that I was reading books on fishing techniques and strategies he said, "Dude, that's cheating". Guess who immediately began to catch a ton more fish. Internet research is great, but IMO books still have their place and their uses.

Re: Troling Motor and fishing

I am on this going to the books store

Re: Troling Motor and fishing

You will be glad you did man. At the absolute minimum you will learn all the terminology. After that you should try to find a forum that has a section specific to the waters of your area and see if any one is making reports. I learned a bunch of good stuff "trolling" N. CA specific sites for fishing tips.

Many times they'll start out a report with some critical information: Date, Time, Weather Conditions, Surface Temp, Total Depth of Water, etc. Then sometimes even tell you how far down they were when they started picking up fish. Once you have a decent set up to troll with you can just go to the lakes, look for the boats trolling and join the line.

Have fun!

Re: Troling Motor and fishing

If you have a 2 stroke on that bay liner you will carbon that motor up ;and ruin it. We get them in the shop all the time with no compression and then they admite to trolling with that 90 hp. Your best bet is a 10 horse kicker you can steer with the wheel or a trolling motor.

Re: Troling Motor and fishing

I used to load up my kicker motors too. I run a trolling plate on a 40 horse Johnson, and every so often I kick it in neutral and rev the engine for a couple minutes. I also open it up to go from one spot to another. I've been keeping my kicker as a spare for if something goes wrong with the other motor. Been 5 years since it had to be worked on, other than routine spring time stuff. And I put at least 200 hours trolling a year on mine. I work 4 10 hr days a week, so have 3 day weekends every week, 4 with holidays. Last year out 5 times with a fishin buddy, at lest 30 hrs a weekend. 3 times with my wife 15 to 20 hr + weekends, and once with a nephew over 30. That's probably pretty average for the last few years.