Jake;
Al Linder said it best on a show he did, talking about the same mentality as you……..He called it “Trollathon”…..His mission was to change peoples mind on it……
I used to kinda think the same way you did…….You trolled until you found fish…….If they were there, they bit, if not, they didn’t………
Then one fine day in June, James took me and my father out on the river for a little trolling. We caught fish when others didn’t!!!!!!
Now, another point…….
Mille Lacs fall walleye full moon night bite…….
Me and my buddy always do well……..catching on average 10 to 20 fish on a good night, maybe 25 on a great night…..Went with James this fall, along with Kooty, and on a “bad night” with the wrong weather conditions, we boated a solid 20 fish, where others boated maybe 5……
Our trolling was a “crawl”……I asked James why not just “fan cast” the area to cover more ground and possibly be more stealth, instead of trolling. HIS KEY RESPONSE: “YOU CAN’T CONTROL THE LURE GOOD ENOUGH WITH A CONSISTENT, CORRECT RETREIVAL SPEED TO BE EFFECTIVE WHEN CASTING, THAT IS WHY WE TROLL.”
Boat control and lure selection is CRUCIAL in order to boat fish. It is all presentation.
Two years ago on LOTW, our group decided to all gather together for an afternoon of fishing, teamed up with a shorelunch. Guys were jigging the reefs for walleyes, and not far away were some good weed beds for muskies/pike where other members of our group where fishing. We didn’t catch any muskies and the pike were hammerhandles in the weeds. It wasn’t too thrilling. So, my partner and I decided to do some open water trolling in the area just to experiment. We tried open water trolling for muskies and pike……..Just going a “blind” troll, open water, over bait fish, up in the Big Narrows. We trolled over 30 to 80 feet of water, with our lures running 15 to 20 feet. The bait fish we marked were 15 to 20 feet below the surface. This was a true “trollathon” to see what would happen. Only one lure (walleye Depth Raider) boated fish. All other plugs didn’t do it……..By the way, our pike where 10 to 15lbs, a couple of average muskies in the same weight class……….and we boated fish about every 15 to 30 minutes for four hours. YES!!! We boated 15lb pike over 80 fow, that were 15′ below the surface, suspended, not within 300′ of any shorline structure……. Not bad for a “trollathon”!!! By the way, the guys in our party who were casting the weed beds, just caught hammerhandles, with the best being in the 5lb class.
Still think trolling is stupid???
Yep, you can go on a “blind run”, OR you can do some precision trolling (whether it is open water or contour) and outfish the guy who jigs, cast, or bobber fishes……..
)
……It’s no different than fishing with a bobber, or tip-up, or a Y-stick (all very boring 
). 
……….they are in the same family as the bass, aren’t they??? 
alone, and go after something with TEETH!!! Like a MUSKIE!!!!!!! 
…………ahhhh………NOPE, not yet…….I’ll still take a 3# walldog over a 3# basser anyday……I’m just gonna start fishing em with my baitcaster and texas rigged tubes 
drag queen
