Trolling is placing your lures in the water with your boat in gear and letting the speed of your boat decide the action of the lure. Sounds easy enough but productive trolling techniques take time to learn. I am sure this site will contain information useful to trollers no mater what skill level or where and what they fish.
One of the big keys to consistent success is a good spread of lures which gets all the lures you are allowed to run into the water without tangling. This spread covers a broad range of depths, distances from the boat, lure style and color.
The basic tools for attaing a maximum lure spread are: downriggers, planer boards and diving planes such as dipsy divers or fish seekers
Trolling Speed in my opinion is the most important of many variables that the troller must deal with. A change in speed of less than one m.p.h. can spell the difference between a number of hookups and none.
To deal with trolling speed in an efficient manner the angler must; 1) understand what trolling speed is; 2)understand how to match terminal tackle to trolling speed; 3)know how to control trolling speed
1. Trolling speed is the speed that the lures are moving though the water, but not necessarily the same speed the boat is moving. Currents, either on the surface or below ,can cause the relative speeds of boat and lure to be different. the standard trolling speed is between 1 1/2 and 3 m.p.h. this is an over simplification. in the finger lakes I usually start at 2.0 m.p.h.
2. The best way to match terminal tackle to trolling speed is to know what lures will work at what speeds. the best way to learn this is to place your lures over the side of the boat with at least 6 feet of line and watch how your lures work.
3. In order to control trolling speed there must be some way to measure trolling speed! the only accurate way to measure trolling speed is to have a speedometer at the same depth as the lures in question but every thing has its price and an accurate surface speedometer will do the job if you cant afford the more expensive models.