Trolling and marking fish?

[eriksat1]

I am just getting into trolling for walleyes again. As a general rule of thumb what depth do you start out trolling your bait at? Like say you are marking fish at 25' do start out at 25' or a few feet above like run your bait at 22'?

[fishing4eyes]

You always want your baits above the fish you mark. No matter where you are marking fish you always want to have some baits in the top 10' of the water. These fish you will never mark on your fish finder because they will move away from the boat, this is why using boards to the side of the boat is a must for trolling. Good Luck

[eriksat1]

So it is better to run your flat lines to the sides with the planer boards and your deep lines straight off the back of the boat? I am only going to run 4 lines. I suppose I need to read a book on trolling, any recommendations?

[sdphil]

deep lures closer to boat, shallow runners out on the boards

[Papascott]

Above the fish almost always. How far above is a matter of water clarity and fish aggressiveness. The more of either of those the higher you can get away with running your baits. Not uncommon for Walleye to come 10-20 ft up in the right conditions.

[new hips]

When fishing Winninbago, I always had my outside boards running top six foot of water, inside maybe 10-15ft down . Back of the boat run your Thundersticks Jr. so you reach 14-17ft. Cover all your water layers, keep changing until the fish tell you what they want.