Leadcore is great for getting down deep without letting out alot of line and works well in river situations where current kinda messes up your lure depth when just standard longline trolling. My suggestion is to get The Precision Trolling book if you do not already own one. It will explainalot about leadcore trolling and give you exact depths for your crankbaits and spinners for both longline and leadcore trolling. You don’t have to have a linecounter reeel but I’ll tell you from experience that having a couple sure takes care alot of headaches and its so easy to get your lures to the right depth if you have one. They are not cheap but worth the price 10 fold. Diawa 27 models are the best in my opinion. but don’t get exspensive with your rods you don’t need a $100 rod for trolling. Experiment with your lure presentations but you can’t go wrong with shad raps year round and just remember a general rule of thumb is the warmer the water the faster you luresto wobble or swim. Summer time is Storm Hot-n-Tot time or something with a faster wobble. Good luck hope this helped