Trolling Boards???

[KToms]

Trolling with boards and reef runners south of Green Island yesterday yielded three walleyes! The problem: We couldn't tell when we had a fish on. All were drug quite a while as evidence of their dead appearance when boated. What's the secret reading the off shore boards? With the bigger fish off Huron this past fall it wasn't a problem. Is it the fact that these fish were only 3 & 4 pounders or are we doing something wrong? Any help would be appreciated. (Last fall was our first experience with boards)

[Gilligan]

Get the tattle flags that Off Shore sells for their boards. They are great!

[Keith Krych]

You have two options.

One is to place both pinch pads on the tow arm. One faces out as normal, and the second is placed in the hole, on the arm, closest to the rear of the board. The board will "tip up" to see light biters.

Second option is to install tattle flag kits on the boars. The kits are available at local tackle stores or on line at offshore.com.

I would also replace the black release that comes with the boards, with the OR16 red release. They hold much better.

Good fishing
Keith

[captjack]

I just got in from fishing about an hour ago with my offshores and tattle flags. My 8 year old spotted every hit we had on the boards. Kind of like fishing tip ups in reverse.
I just got them this spring but I really like them so far. I haven't found a downside yet.

Good Luck, Jack

[KToms]

Thanks for all the information! Since I have both pinch pads on the tow arm, I think I'll get the tattle tale flag kits.

[Kevin A.]

If you have 3-4 pounders on you should be able to see that they are there. If you had a 14 incher on that would be a bit different.

It makes it easier if you're running at least two boards per side. Take a hard look at how the boards are lined up with each other when you first put them out. If you miss the strike & a fish is on you'll see that one board seems to be dragging relative to the other. Another thing to look for is how the board moves as it goes through the water...if a board seems sluggish and doesn't move as freely as the other one then you've got a fish on. Once you know what to look for you won't need the second board for a reference...you'll just know how the board should look when there is no fish on (this is most of the time when you staring at it). Eventually you'll know by looking at it whether there is a small or medium fish on or whether the bait has fouled with weeds, plastic...

Nothing that 50-100 hours of staring at boards can't cure.

[KToms]

All the suggestions were very helpful, but the biggest plus was fishing the boards in calm water today. We could tell what they were doing at all times. You are so right, it's nothing experience can't cure.

By the way we ended up with 5 fish today, 3 of which were "Fish Ohio", the largest being 31". Twenty-two to twenty-six feet down with bright colored reef runners half way between Green and Rattlesnake, 1.5-2.0 mph and a lot of S curves. All the fish came on the outside during a turn.