I mainly troll while fishing lakes. I have an assortment of 7 rods on my boat courtesy of my friends that range from some limber poles to much firmer ones. Three of the rods have Pflueger 40 series reels on them with 10# braid, I also have three extra spools with 20# braid on them if I’m targeting lake trout. These rod / reel set ups have double duty as trolling rigs and spin cast. I also have a small fenwick rod with a 20 series Shimano reel that I bought in the late 80’s at big 5 that was on sale, I’ve caught a ton of fish with that set up, lately it has served well at jigging for walleye.
One of the stiffer rods has a Newell conventional with 20# test. Just rebuilt two 50 year old Penn Jig Master 500 conventional reels, 2/0 size, that were my Dads (I remember when he bought those reels-yikes) and a 50 year old Penn level wind that my Dad bought me when I was about 8 or so. The 2/0 reels got 40# braid and will be mated to a couple of very nice rods dedicated for trolling for the big lake trout, rainbows, browns and salmon. I also have a early 80’s Diawa conventional that got 40# braid as well.
For lures, the most successful one is a Storm brand, smash shad in blue color-I’ve caught everything from bluegill to 35” Northern Pike with these lures. I’ve also used the same lure in a bronze color that has a black back which also catches trout, but seems to work great for small mouth bass. The other really good lure is an old school spoon in a blue / silver color. Recent additions have been some Salmo lures that are racking up a lot of catches, so far the Dalmatian and black one with gold stripes are doing best with a crawdad colored one doing okay as well. I caught a really nice 4.5 pound rainbow a couple of days ago casting off the boat with the black / Gold Salmo.
Most of the time while trolling I run a long and short line set up, this has been very successful catching trout and Northern Pike. I have two Cannon Unitroll 10 down riggers that I have used a few times, so far with no success, hopefully that will change soon! I got a pair of rod riggers the other day to widen the spread a bit and those seem to work pretty good, caught several on those yesterday.
I’ve had up to 6 rods out while trolling, I put the deep divers closest to the boat and in the vertical rod holders in the transom, then stagger the rest as far as distance from the boat and depth, using the other 30° rod holders for separation- pretty exciting with four people on the boat and triple hook ups! Chaos but it sure puts a smile on your face!
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