After almost a 3 week break from fishing in order to move, I couldn’t take unpacking anymore and had to get out on the lake. Being my first report as an official IDO reporter, I wish I could say the fish were jumping in the boat, but that just was not the case today. Good thing that the weather was great.
I was joined in the boat today by my friend Carl Hendrickson, with whom I serve on the local Ducks Unlimited board. He had never done any trolling for walleye and was interested in seeing what it was all about. Our first fish of the day, a nice 13″ crappie, came less than 10 minutes after getting all the boards set. I had no sooner gotten the board set back out when it picked up another fish, which appeared to be quite a bit nicer than the crappie. After a good fight, a nice chunky 24 1/2″ walleye found its way into the bottom of the net. After a few pictures and a quick measurement, the fish was released good and healthy.
As I was setting the board back, Carl uttered the phrase that will surely jinx a day in a hurry. “This planer board fishing is pretty easy isn’t it?” We continued pulling boards for a while with very few quality fish to show for it. We managed to pick up two eater sized fish, a few short fish, and some white bass over the next few hours, but it was a pretty tough bite.
Around 10:00 we bagged pulling boards as I wanted to do a little exploring as I will be out again tomorrow. We did some longline trolling in a couple spots, picking up some more short fish including a sauger that was only 6 inches long that hit a #7 flicker shad. I also tried pulling leadcore for a while just to check out if the plethora of deep fish I had been marking were hungry, but nothing came of that. We called it a day at 1:30 as I needed to get home and get my internet working and do some more unpacking. Not my best day on the water, but certainly better than most other things I could think of doing today.
As has been the case for the last month, black and gold caught the majority of the fish today, with blue tiger coming in 2nd. I cycled through a half dozen colors on the other rods without a fish on anything else.
Nice 1st report good job
X2………. looking forward to more John
Nice write up John ~
Nice first report John!
We stuck to trolling the stumps for the morning. Ended up with crappies & white bass for our efforts. No keeper walleyes.
Good luck with the wrist surgery!
Nice report. I had planned a Friday cat round up but the netman bagged at the last second.. again. I did spend a little time in the basement working on gear and I think I figured out my board issues. It was about the tension adjustment. I can’t wait to try them again now.
Great report John
Good read John….some days are better no doubt, but that is what keeps us making the return trip!
John,
I want to replace my releases on some planer boards. What type of releases do you recommend?
Thanks and nice report too!
I run a Red (OR30) off shore release on the back of the board and an Orange (OR19) off shore release on the front. I run mono on my board rods, but if I was running braid, I would run the red releases both front and back. The orange clips don’t have the pin in them, so they are easier to pop the line free on them. The red one keeps you from having to go chase your board as it can’t pop off due to the pin.
As is the case with most things fishing related, there are lots of differing opinions on types of boards and clips and how to set them up. I’ve tried a few different configurations, and the orange front and red rear seems to work well for me.
One OR-18 release is all you will need if you’re running braid.
I have never used the OR-18, but have always been curious about how they work.
Congrats on your first report John and I look forward to many more!
They work great on braid but I would never put one on a mono line. Severe damage would surely occur.
Joel,
What line do you use on your board rods? For fathers day my mom bought me one board
I told her that is like buying one shoe. she wasn’t amused. I generally only run them for muskies when I am up north but I like Jon’s setup a lot. I know he runs mono big game in 12pound.
I run 10# Spider Wire Stealth on my rods.
One of them may still have 10# smoke colored fireline yet.
I found the orange OR19 releases at Cabelas but not having any luck finding the red OR30 releases anywhere. I went to Offshore’s website and they don’t list them in their product line. Do they still make them? Anyone know where I can buy them?
I’ve been playing with 20lb stealth and also 20lb Power pro. I run 65lb power pro when musky trolling. You have to double wrap them on the church boards I’ve been running. Messy especially with a big one on. I think you live dangerously with 10lb with all of those big toothys on the lake. Do you get bit off frequently?
Just once that I remember. It’s no more likely to get bit off than 12lb mono.
The lite line allows me to get certain lures down to 15′ deep on the troll. That’s very hard to do with heavier line.
I could & do use lead core but sometimes its nice to get that deep using flat lines.
If you buy the tattle flag kits you get two of the releases with the pin. I will go down to the barn tomorrow and take a look at my releases again and make sure they are the 30. You can get them on the off-shore website.
Off-shore OR30