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The Hows and Whats of Trolling for Stripers

189K views 100 replies 45 participants last post by  rimshot 
#1 ·
This is my first post so go gentle on me!
This will be my second year having my boat on the Merrimack River in Newburyport, Ma. I have had good success fishing the Mouth of the river, but not so good venturing out of the mouth. I would like do do more trolling this year and am looking for some input on equipment, technique, and locations. Any information/help is welcome.

Thanks in advance.
Everyone have a great Memorial Day weekend and take someone fishing!

Sea Wassp

PS: Thanks for this site. It is AWESOME!
 
#77 ·
Wow it has been two years and this forum has paid off!!

I haven't been on the forum in about a year and was surprised and pleased to still see my original post from 2004 still going!! I have attached the results of everyones feed back. The Ten year old is now twelve and this 24lb Bass was taken at the mouth of the Merrimack last June trolling an umbrella rig.

The shrink wrap came off the boat today!!

Thank you everyone for your input!!

Sea Wassp :cheers:

 
#78 ·
If i'm downrigging mono about how much of a leader do i want from the line relase clip to the lure? I have used a few feet and have gotton no hits. When I lenthen the leader to about 15ft i get line twist. Do i need to place a barrel swivel after the release clip? Help!
 
#79 ·
Yes, you absolutely need to have a longer leader, and also need a barrel or ball-bearing swivel (ball-bearing if the budget allows). You should have at least 15 foot on murky water days (if you have a mono mainline), with a swivel either near the lure or near the release clip. If you have a braid mainline, or are in clear waters, you should have at the very least 18 feet (3 arm lengths and a little bit), and in clear water, even as much as 30 foot. You need a swivel down there, my rigs always have at least 2 swivels in them, sometimes as much as 3-4 for tandems (usually 2 for umbrellas, although 1 will suffice if its ball-bearing).

Im not sure where your fishing, but you should be fishing in the top 25' of water if your in the Chesapeake, right now they are up high. Water depth should be within 25-60 or so.
 
#81 ·
Hey Kevin I have a 20 ft cc and I'm trolling with a 150hp Merc about 1-2 knots. I was told to get a 4-5hp kicker as the Merc was too noisy for the fish. Is this true if the line is out 30-40ft? Since I'm pickin your brain what is the best trolling lure in your box?
 
#82 ·
K-Cube said:
Yes, you absolutely need to have a longer leader, and also need a barrel or ball-bearing swivel (ball-bearing if the budget allows). You should have at least 15 foot on murky water days (if you have a mono mainline), with a swivel either near the lure or near the release clip. If you have a braid mainline, or are in clear waters, you should have at the very least 18 feet (3 arm lengths and a little bit), and in clear water, even as much as 30 foot. You need a swivel down there, my rigs always have at least 2 swivels in them, sometimes as much as 3-4 for tandems (usually 2 for umbrellas, although 1 will suffice if its ball-bearing).

Im not sure where your fishing, but you should be fishing in the top 25' of water if your in the Chesapeake, right now they are up high. Water depth should be within 25-60 or so.
I fish mostly with downriggers(freshwater more than salt) and your advise is much like my setups as I use a long line behind the weights. The only question I have is when you mention a ball-bearing swivel are you referring to the same thing that I call a "beadchain swivel"? I find these to eliminate twisting with any type of trolling, whether it be a sewed smelt on a flyrod or a 10" bomber on the downrigger. The ones I use are longer than what's pictured. Some as long as 6''.
 
#83 ·
Anglerj said:
Hey Kevin I have a 20 ft cc and I'm trolling with a 150hp Merc about 1-2 knots. I was told to get a 4-5hp kicker as the Merc was too noisy for the fish. Is this true if the line is out 30-40ft? Since I'm pickin your brain what is the best trolling lure in your box?
I really dont think that at all unless you have no cowling and the motor is a 2-stroke from the 60's. I use a 225 Optimax and while it may be a bit less noisy then the two-strokes, it certainly does its bit of purring. I have never heard anyone doing that, and while the 150 is a lot bigger then a 4-5 horse kicker, it doesnt mean it will be any noisier. Just try to stay out of big schools of boats (bigger then 12 or so) as that combined noise will scare the fish. However if your casting, then an electric trolling motor is good, because running into your target area with the motor running can scare the fish (in all honesty though I dont have one). Also note that starting the engine will also scare fish the most (noisiest). Just continue using you 150 horse, it wont hurt your fishing any.

In regard to your mention, 30-40 feet on the mainline isnt that much at all. I usually use 25 foot leaders, and have my shortest line back about 40-50 additonal feet, and sometimes let out rigs as much as 180 feet. I count feet by each pass of the guide on my reels, it is equal to 10 feet. If your lines are all out 30-40 feet, unless you have some weight, if you are using mono, your rigs will be about 4 foot down for a 6-10 ounce lure, for braid, about 6 foot down. The fish are in the upper water column, but I wouldnt run anything higher then 6 feet, and nothing lower then 25. The fishing is gonna start trailing off as they start heading north, and will be harder to locate, trophy season is after all nearing its end.

About lures, I've been using a lot of different stuff this year. In complete honesty, if the fish is hungry, and you put the lure in front of its face, it will bite it. However, white has been the dominant color, and if your running few rods, umbrella rigs will help you out a lot. Parachutes are of course the traditional favorite, and running a 12 inch or bigger umbrella followed by the parachute will net you some fish, as well as you being able to replace it with a tony spoon (size 21 if your going for the big ones!). I will say though that my hottest lures have been the holographic ones. We got a new color last year that is a transparent lure with a mylar center that changes from purple/green/blue/yellow/red depending on where your looking at it from. I use a 4-arm 12 inch umbrella with the holographic teasers on it, and then have the hooked holo/mylar swim shad following (they are sold with or without hooks, with a different tail style depending on this fact). It looks awesome, and thats what I caught my first fish of the season on, and others have had great luck with them. You do have to keep them dry however, because the clarity will go south if you leave them in a bucket or in the water somewhere. I've never seen these anywhere else, although Im sure they're sold elsewhere, and they arent a name-brand, so its hard for me to tell you where to get them.

Another great lure is the tsunami bunker swim shads. For trolling, I use a 9-inch bunker colored shad (the clear/chartruese ones that are new this year are awesome also) and a 7-inch bunker shad. Herring is anothe excellent color, and instead of a 7-inch bunker shad, you can use a bucktail, or differently colored shad. The holographic mylar shads with storm's 6-inch purple phantom work good too. Theres a lot of great stuff out there, but if your running few rods, I'd stick to the umbrellas for half your rods, and then use tandems for the rest.
 
#84 ·
HuntFishSled said:
I fish mostly with downriggers(freshwater more than salt) and your advise is much like my setups as I use a long line behind the weights. The only question I have is when you mention a ball-bearing swivel are you referring to the same thing that I call a "beadchain swivel"? I find these to eliminate twisting with any type of trolling, whether it be a sewed smelt on a flyrod or a 10" bomber on the downrigger. The ones I use are longer than what's pictured. Some as long as 6''.
Nope, I meant ball-bearing. There are 3 basic types of swivels, barrel, bead, and ball-bearing. Ball-bearing are the smoothest of the bunch, however some bead's can come close and surpass in some situations because of the multiple swivels. Ball-bearings though have virtually no friction at all. Sampro sells them stapled to cardboard, and on the side a demonstration. A swivel with a limp line tied on. You spin it, and it doesnt allow the line to twist at all.

Its similiar to in reels, there is almost always a positive correlation between reel smoothness and number of ball-bearings. I use Sampro, an american made swivel, and their coastlock barrel swivels are very good too. I have used mustads and a few other brands, but sampro still tops them. They on the down side however are expensive, in any brand. A 150# regular swivel (no snap) from sampro (too big for rockfish, I use 100#'s) costs about 2.60 per. However, they will last a few seasons, and have a good finish, as opposed to most barrel swivels. My favorite barrel swivels are definitely spro by the way, I find them to last the longest before corroding, followed by mustad.

 
#85 ·
I appreaicate the info and will be heading out in the morning. The big fish are starting to arrive here. I put on a ball bearing swivel the other day it worked well no hangups or twist at all.

One question though, if I'm using an 8pound ball and dropping it 15-20ft and the line after the clip is out 40ft, i guess your saying that my lure is only running at about 6ft deep? Is that correct? So shouldn't i be dropping the ball to just above the fish say if the fish are at 20ft i put the ball at 18ft and let out less of a leader from the clip, so instead of 40ft only go 30ft?

Jeff
 
#86 ·
with a downrigger, your lure is at the same depth as where your ball is. So if you let out about 20 feet, your ball is at about 17-18 (give or take, because your ball will never drop straight down) and the lure below that. 40 feet is fine, 30 would work too, but I would let it out further just to get it away from the boat motor noise. Probably 50 feet total (including leader). Doing this, remember if your using a medium weight lure (around 8 ounces), then the 50 feet will allow the lure to drop about 7 1/2 feet or so. 6 feet for a 5-6 ounces lure. This is for BRAIDED line, mono doesnt drop nearly as much, and 50 feet will merit about 4-5 feet on a medium weight lure.

So, if you want your 8 ounce lures in 20 feet, let the ball out about 15 feet or so and then drop the line back. Im sure 30 feet would be fine to, but then you'll just have to readjust. This is all ball-parking, and it takes experience to fine-tune things and know where your lure will be for example if you swap out a 30 foot mono leader with a 12' fluro one. It all takes experience, but as long as you have a couple line out in different depths of their predicted water column (for example, top 25' and the very bottom) to create a blanket or wall, you should be fine, I always have. I have a chart for this like I said, and I'd post it, but I left it with my chart on a friends boat...

I dont use downriggers much, I hate using weight too, I weigh all my rigs on a postal scale and then predetermine the slot range for how many feet Ill let the lines out for the day. Down riggers would certainly help when using in excess of 4 rods, but I usually only use 4. They also eliminate the weight on the lines, but I have no problem letting a line out 200+ feet in order to eliminate that problem. I was referring to just straight letting the line out sorry, forgot you were downrigging
 
#87 ·
To update you i made it out 6 more times and trolled 4 of them with 2 fish boated. Not bad, batting 500. I did notice that i seem to have more hookups and hits when the lure is closer to the release than farther away. Both catches were about 10-15ft off the release. No other hits when further back, but most of the guys at the marina are saying they are 40-60 ft. Any thoughts on this?
 
#88 ·
I've had good luck with downriggers in 40 to 100 ft of water looking for lakers or salmon.... Never had much luck with ol' line sides. Seems like a lot of my stripers taken on tubes hook up in 12 to 20 feet of water. Even less sometimes. The biggest problem I see with down riggers at short depths is that the boat, motor noise, etc are pretty noticable to the fish. Now I doubt that those lakers nailed at 110 feet notice my 13 foot 15hp up above but a striper 12 feet down might be bugged a bit by the 20foot 150hp salt water rig over her head. My experience with the tubes is that getting some space between the boat and the bait makes a difference. Bottom line is even at 20 feet down the bait is pretty much right under the boat. As for the ball? Doesn't seem to bother 'em at all. Never noticed much difference between dragging the lure 30 feet behind the ball or 5. Actually sometimes I think closer is better. The ball does create a disturbance (exspecially when it hits bottom:) and might even help to get a big lakers attention.
Hey try it_ The nice thing about using a down rigger is you can put a couple out and then put a couple more with weights or wire out behind them. More bait out = more fish in- seems like a reasonable plan.
 
#90 ·
GunnySniper said:
Your out trolling, and things are not happening like they should.
Get into a rip along a bottom reef, at the head of it, shut down.
Tie a three way to your line, on one side drop a leader 2 feet to a sinker, on the other a 3 foot leader to a hook. Put on an Eel and DRIFT the rip keeping the lead bouncing bottom, with your line tight. Night or day this works!
Your cruising along and a school of Bluefish is slamming bait. Scramble for the poppers? NOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Get the snaggers out! get close to the school, but not so close you spook them down. Snag some bait. Menhaden snag best with a long steady sweep, instead of a sharp jerk. Get the bait in fast, so a yellow eyed devil don't get it.
Move the boat DOWN current from the marauders usually a couple hundred feet. Get that three way set up. Cut the head section off the bunker, and hook the head on. Drop it and drift, drag loose enough to feed a running hit. After about 20 to 30 yards of run hit the brakes.
Bet ya' got a Bass of 25 or better!
That school of Blues not only put a nice chum slick in the water, the heads they don't eat are the favorite part for a Striper.
Mother nature has a funny way doing things sometimes. Big Bass are lazy slobs that will eat from the buffet every chance they get.

The rods I use for the boat vary, I am a custom builder. For trolling and drifting I like short stand up style rods, usually 6 1/2 feet with a moderate action that allows the rod to pressure the hook set. I use light lines never more than 30 lb, most often 20. I like the Gti series by Penn, as well as the 4/0's. When I lighten up to 12 or 15 lb test, I use my Squidders.
I have recently purchased a couple of the Okuma silver lever drags, mostly with Yellow Fin in mind, That I will try out at the Block to get used to them. The lever drag seems a better way to put the brakes on. Will let you know how they go.
Hey GunnySniper,

I fish on my boat out of jamestown. I love both fishing the bay, to Brenton's reef, to Beavertail. I have a question about "DRIFT the rip keeping the lead bouncing bottom, with your line tight." Is it better to tie off the weight and then have the seperate leader to the Eel. I have always used a weighted slide to a barrel swivel and then about a four foot mono leader to the to the hook(Eel). The other problem is I get snagged alot if I drift fish with weighted Eels around our rocky shores. Lastly, what size hooks do you recommend for Eels 9-12+ inch.. Any tips you could give me would be great. Good fishing!

Jimmyville
 
#91 ·
Hello everyone, I just joined the site and wanted to say that I'm very impressed by the information supplied in posts. Gunnysniper, great info on trolling the tube. This is what sites are disigned for, sharing info, not the I fished ocean X spot today using special X bait and caught X amount of fish in X amount of water near spot X :pbdoi:

I would like to add something that has worked very well for me in the past.

I troll T-man tubes, and I'm still learning the in and outs about it, but a technique that has worked well for me is trolling Gibbs Danny Swimmer on wire line, I like to get it down near bottom and typically in 25 feet of water I have it down around 18 or so, and have had huge success with this method. The down fall is if you get hung up your out 15 bucks or more.

Look forward to contributing and reading these great posts!!!
 
#101 ·
I'm still out here on the west side of the map and haven't been able to retire and make a striper run out there yet. When I do retire, that's first on the list. That being said, I do troll for stripers out here and was wondering if our method would work out there. Here we don't troll in the ocean for stripers. At least no one I know. We work the delta. The Sacramento River, the Mokelumne River, and Steamboat Slough to name a few. There's many more. I like to shallow troll, 6' to 8' deep has been good to me but you have to watch the sonar all the time to follow the contour of the bottom. I will deep troll too but no deeper than 15'. I use a 9'9" Lamiglass Norwest Special rod with a Diawa line counter reel. I run 60 lb. Power Pro braded line with a 6' mono 30lb. leader. My go to lure is the Yozuri crystal minnow shallow runner with a white body and a red head. I change out the hooks with 4X hooks and attach a 6" white trick worm on the back hook. This tightens up the wobble and drives the stripers nuts. Another good pattern is the rainbow trout. I haven't had a chance to read every post here yet, I will, but so far I haven't seen anything like this method used out there. Do you guys think this would work out there? (I haven't been here for a while and looking back I see I've touched on this before so please forgive my redundancy)
 
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