# At Least the Skunk is Off



## LDUBS (Mar 4, 2019)

Well, the weatherman was right. We had a break in the rain today. The sun was even out for a little while and there was little to no wind. 

I managed to get out for about 3 ½ hours. Put two in the boat. Nothing to brag about but sure is better than the skunk I had last Friday. 

Water temp was 53 deg’s, which is colder than I would have guessed it would be. Water is murky from all of the rain we have had. I caught these on copper & red/gold spoons trolling 4’ down on the riggers in about 70’ of water. Going as slow as my boat would go, which was about 2.4 mph today. Trolling drogues are on my never-ending list of things for the boat. 

Still looking for a limit in 2019.


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## Superlucky (Mar 5, 2019)

LDUBS

How far back are you running the lures behind the downriggers?

Just curious

Bill


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## LDUBS (Mar 5, 2019)

I normally use the 100' rule -- 30' down & 70' setback, 20' down & 80' setback, etc. However, when trolling this shallow I throw that rule out the door. I was 4' down on the wire which put the rigger releases 2 1/2' to 3' under the surface. Yesterday I was using 160' & 170' setbacks. I hear of guys using 200' & 250' setbacks. 

Fish this shallow will scatter as the boat passes over, hence the longer setback. Hopefully the longer setbacks give fish that scatter down a chance to come back up. In general I guess I increase the setback quite a bit when I'm down 10' or less. 

Conventional wisdom is that planer boards would be a much better bet for shallow trolling as they will move the lures further out to each side of the boat and maybe even put them into the path of fish that scatter to the side. 

As an aside, some of my favorite spoons (Thomas Speedy Shiners) can be a pain to get under water because they will hydroplane on the surface. It probably wouldn't be a problem if I could troll at 1.5 mph, but that is not possible with my current set up. When using those spoons, I often have to lower the down riggers to 20' or more to get the spoons to submerge and then bring them back up to the shallower depth I want. I really don't want to put a [strike]planer board[/strike] trolling plate on my outboard. As I mentioned earlier, trolling socks are on my list.

Yikes -- Kind of a long winded response.


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