Just curious for the people who like to troll Main Lake points and channels: what kinds of methods do you use for controlling your boat. Most times there is wind. During the winter you really need to get to a crawl. What is the pefered method? Just looking for other ways for certain situations. Another question, has any one used a river rig w/floating jig/minnow combo before? I read about this rig and want to try it in the future. Thanks Slow

The wind can be a problem. I usually will hang in the wind until the rods really start bouncing. They won't hit those bouncing rods very well.
The boat I am in now is big and heavy. I run a 109# t/m that has plenty of power and will let me fish all day in the wind.
I just point the nose into the wind and keep one foot on the t/m. It gets old trolling in the wind for sure. I fill up my gas tank and livewells to add as much weight as possible. This Pro V doesn't bounce much. That really helps.

I know that Paul has drug a chain before. They sometimes do that in tournaments. You have to go with the wind if you do that. Some even use a drift sock to slow them down.

Jerry I have a question for ya, when you are targeting a spot lets say a dam are you locating the fish or baitfish and marking that area and trolling through their or just a certain depth or are you just trolling a big area with several poles at different depths?

Thanks

Marc

I would look for schools of shad and then fish. I would then set my poles at different depths until I figured out which depth was producing best.

When you run 2 hooks pay attention to which hook they are biting. If all your fish seem to be on the top hook. You are fishing a little deep and vise versus.

Thanks Jerry for the responce, we hit bardwell yesterday and just fished our brushpiles (24') on the lake at 4:00 pm and fished till 5:45, no crappie, 2 nice hybrids and a small sandie.

Marc,

Crappie will leave those brushpiles alot of time in the winter. Some go up the creeks, some will go to boat slips but more will just school up in open water following Shad. If you can read a graph, you can find them. It requires more skill finding fish in open water but the rewards are worth the trouble.