Especially for those of you fishing open water, how far back do you troll? Is farther better, or do the fish even care?

For plugs I just wing it out there 30 yards or so. I don't think it matters that much.

Consider that with trolling from a powerboat, with will hit plugs as short as 10 yards or less. I would think with the yak they'll probably hit pretty close.

I'll go as far back as 75 feet. But mostly between 50 and 60 feet, depending on the debth. Deeper the water the farther out I go.

JJ

Consider also that if youre fishing with mono, the farther back you are, the better the chance of NOT getting a good hookset. If youve got 300 feet of line out, you better reel in tight before you try to set on him.

So, use braid which doesnt stretch. Fishing for salmon and trout in fresh, kept a fly 7-10 yrds back and the plug maybe twice that. If fishing deep for lakers had lots of line out.

From the yak, I put out only 5-10 yrds.

I have had fish hit right next to the boat when brining in a trolled lure.

However, never a big one. I think it might be safe to assume that the further from the boat you can get your lure the better the presentation. There is a point of diminishing return though as you start to lose control over the distance. This can result in slack when a fish hits. It also makes course correction difficult.

Somewhere in the middle (aint that life?) is best. Sometimes I will drop out a long line and I will put out a short offering on another rod in my hand. I like a loud troller, like a jointed bomber to go first and then a more stealthy lure out longer. This wakes em up and then the pretty lure goes over their head.

This past weekend one of the girls in our outdoor group was using a "Barbie"style 3 ft rod and spinning reel combo. the best she could do was maybe 10-15 ft casts but be damned if she didnt catch more than 3 of the other guys with $100+ ultralight outfits . 3 ft average depth with most fish caught just below the boat. close hook sets worked better than the longer casts.

quote:

From the yak, I put out only 5-10 yrds.

Wow, it's safe to say that I was fishing WAY too far back. Tonight I trolled ~60 feet back (any closer and the spreader bar I was using would rise to the surface) and still caught fish. Next time I'll try plugs and go 30-40 feet back.

When you get a fish on while trolling 2 rods it sure is nice to not have 150 feet of limp line floating in the current with a sinking lure on the end looking to snag bottom. Tight lines.

I thought the off-shore waters around Granada were real deep and snagging the bottom rare.

My concern is two-fold. First, there's the bottom when fishing shallow water. Second, there's fighting a fish on one line while the kayak drifts over 200' of slack braided line on the second rod. It seems like a good way to loose a big fish. It's a LOT easier to reach back w/ the left hand and crank in 50' of slack rather than 200' of slack.

It does get deep very fast a tad north of me. From my house I have to paddle ~2.0 miles out to get the deep stuff. So there's nearly 4 miles of trolling shallow every time I'm out.

If your going to troll that close try a longer fluro leader, maybe 30 feet. Do you use a wind on?

BTW thanks for the Academy tip. Some useful stuff there.I reposted on our local forum here.

Thanks Dan. Actually, I do use a long Fluoro leader, ~25-30 feet, as per one of your previous posts. I'd put more fluoro on, but I love the braid. Wind on... Not totally sure what you mean by that. Presume it's a casting reel. I actually use spinning reels (same Shimano model BillyBob uses). Our fish are NOTHING like what you tie into. (Well, usually)20 lb line feels like overkill most days to be honest.

Glad you liked that link. And lately I've found myself surfing your forum more and more. Some really great guys over there. I used to say that some people play lotto, I apply for jobs in Hawaii. The Grenada gig came up and it felt like 5 of my 6 powerball numbers came up - good enough for now.