trot lines

Hey guys, first, thanks for the add to the forum. Looking forward to learning a lot from y'all as I already have just by reading the few post that I have on here. Been an avid hunter all my life and the last couple of years have gotten into trot lining. I have had decent success with it but I'm sure I have lots of room for improvement. I wanted to ask all of the trot liners out there for a little advice. Are you already running lines this year? is the water still to cold? where is a good place to start, creeks? open, deep water? shallows? any advice will certainly be appreciated. Not wanting y'all to reveal the honey holes to me or anything but my son and are looking forward to having a productive spring and summer so just thought I'd see if someone was willing to give some pointers. Thanks in advance!

It's a good time to start fishing right now with the waters warming.

4 feet of water parallel with the bank on a flat with wind blowing toward the bank.
Bait 12" off the bottom. Bait can be perch, shad, cut bait, and fresh chicken breast chunks.
This will get blues and channels.

For flatheads I would go deeper long creek channels 12 to 20feet deep and use live bait, perch, mudcat, baby carp and large goldfish set 2 feet off of bottom.

That's what I do in most lakes. Others will have their own methods depending on where they fish.

Thanks For the detailed description Muzzlebrake. I'll defiantly try this next week when I start fishing!!

You can run trotlines most of the year, you just have to adjust where you place them. I ran some with success a month ago in about 15' of water. Muzzlebreak gave you some good advice for this time of year. I've thought about putting some out, and on my lake I'll probably stray a little deeper than he mentioned. Reason is, my local lake is high and there's flooded brush. By going deeper I can get to an area that's under water at normal pool and doesn't have as much brush. With all those hooks it can be easy to get tangled.

ok thanks Tom Baty. my little lake is overfull too.

All the above, good info.
Great way to fish.

I just got a trot line for the first time. Some of the places I want to use it do not have very many objects to tie it to, and TPWD website states metallic stakes are illegal. What are some good ideas to anchor it with?

How do you suspend trot line hooks one or two feet above the bottom?