How Far Back Off Of Planer Board?

[Ltrain]

Originally Posted by Misdirection

The original Yellowbirds only had a clip on the front and a swivel snap on the rear, so your board stayed on the line and went to the fish...that was fun on Lake Michigan with a 22 lbs king breaking water with the yellow bird attached!

Sent from my SM-A505U using Tapatalk

My current boards slide all the way down the line to a swivel 6 feet ahead of my fish, line runs right through middle of the board. I use sidewinder planer boards modified with an OR 14 release. Never had to take a board off a line in my life, absolutely love these boards.
There is a video on YouTube ( not mine) that shows how to do it.

Btw thats a screen capture for reference not a video so hitting the play arrow will do nothing

[Ozark Bob]

There are many ways to do things. I have found out over the years when a fish is only a few feet behind a trolling boat there is very little time to waste before netting or loosing a fish. If they are 15 or 20' back they are much less panic'd. Salmon and ocean fish may have a different attitude. All my references were to Walleye as that was the subject at hand. Hope the OP got something from this thread.

[Custom Eyes]

Originally Posted by Ozark Bob

There are many ways to do things. I have found out over the years when a fish is only a few feet behind a trolling boat there is very little time to waste before netting or loosing a fish. If they are 15 or 20' back they are much less panic'd. Salmon and ocean fish may have a different attitude. All my references were to Walleye as that was the subject at hand. Hope the OP got something from this thread.

I'm sure he did and probably has even more ideas of how to use planers now. That's what's great about forums like this. Lots of different ideas and experiences instead of one person or article dictating the way they think it should be done.

[clawman]

Like Juls said, too many variables here for a specific answer and that will always be true because of the variables in depths and lures.

As far as fishing alone and removing a board, I have learned that if I keep my rod at a 45deg angle so the rod is absorbing jumps and jerks I turn forward with rod pointing @ 45deg up and straight forward while reeling the board to me. When I take the board off there is no slack in the line and I slowly turn back to the fish.

[Ozark Bob]

Originally Posted by Custom Eyes

I'm sure he did and probably has even more ideas of how to use planers now. That's what's great about forums like this. Lots of different ideas and experiences instead of one person or article dictating the way they think it should be done.

Very excellent point! Have thought of that on several occasions.

[Donscs]

Originally Posted by Ozark Bob

I think I was assuming spinners. His post just prior to this was about snap weights. He mentioned in the first post he knew of the variables but was looking for a minimum length to run behind a board. At least that is how I saw it. Bob

Ozark Bob you are correct, was mostly asking for info on suspended harnesses but also asked about body baits as an afterthought, probably just made it more complicated. However I do appreciate all the responses.

OK so some of you are probably saying why are you making this so complicated, because I have all kinds of time on my hands so I can. The truth is if I can figure something out while sitting at my desk rather than on the boat that’s what I’d rather do.

OK here’s the scenario; let’s say I want to cover 8 to 14 feet of water with harnesses. I could probably use the same weight on every rod and let out a different amount of line on each rod to achieve different depths. Sounds easy enough but then I have to remember how much line was let out on the rod that got a hit, which I would have a hard time doing with 6 rods in the water. Also, with boards if the middle rod gets a hit then you move the inside rod out, no way I could keep track of that. Another issue is with different lengths of line out I believe there is a greater opportunity of lines crossing when you get a hit.

So here’s what I plan on doing; use different weights to achieve the depths I want and try and have “line out” on each rod as close as possible. I recently purchase the Troll Master App and will probably end up buying the Precision Trolling App too. Messing around with the App it looks like I can create charts that give me the depth of each harness, at different speeds, with different size weights. So for example if I am running at 1 mph by using different weights I can cover 8 to 14 feet of water and by the looks of it the “line out” on each rod will be within 2 to 8 feet of each other. Hopefully by doing this it decreases the chance of lines crossing when a fish hits and all I have to do is look at the size of the weight to know how far it was let out.

This may not make a lot of sense to some but thought I would give it a try. Given the crew on my boat I have to make things pretty simple, and that includes me. The younger guy is always looking at his phone and the older guys forget where they were when counting out how many passes of the reel they let out (was that 10 or 15 passes, **** can’t remember). Great group of guys and we have a lot of laughs.

So when I asked the original question I was just wondering if you had a preferred length of “line out” you like to use if the variables and conditions permit. The charts I plan on making are going to be from 30 feet on lower speeds to 40+ feet on higher speeds of “line out”, think that will work for me and if not I will make adjustments. Now I just hope my speed indicator and Trolling App are accurate or at least close.

Thanks again for all the responses,
Donscs

[Ozark Bob]

Speed indicator? If you don't have a GPS for speed don't waste you money on Precision trolling for snap weights or any weighted baits.

[Donscs]

Originally Posted by Ozark Bob

Speed indicator? If you don't have a GPS for speed don't waste you money on Precision trolling for snap weights or any weighted baits.

Hi Ozark Bob,

Have this covered, I have a Garmin 4212 with a 12 inch screen and last year added a Garmin Echomap 93SV with a 9 inch screen for side scanning. Also if I ever get the urge, and some money I don’t know what to do with which I highly doubt, I can add Panoptix to the new Garmin.

Thanks,
Donscs

[Custom Eyes]

Originally Posted by Donscs

Ozark Bob you are correct, was mostly asking for info on suspended harnesses but also asked about body baits as an afterthought, probably just made it more complicated. However I do appreciate all the responses.

OK so some of you are probably saying why are you making this so complicated, because I have all kinds of time on my hands so I can. The truth is if I can figure something out while sitting at my desk rather than on the boat that’s what I’d rather do.

OK here’s the scenario; let’s say I want to cover 8 to 14 feet of water with harnesses. I could probably use the same weight on every rod and let out a different amount of line on each rod to achieve different depths. Sounds easy enough but then I have to remember how much line was let out on the rod that got a hit, which I would have a hard time doing with 6 rods in the water. Also, with boards if the middle rod gets a hit then you move the inside rod out, no way I could keep track of that. Another issue is with different lengths of line out I believe there is a greater opportunity of lines crossing when you get a hit.

So here’s what I plan on doing; use different weights to achieve the depths I want and try and have “line out” on each rod as close as possible. I recently purchase the Troll Master App and will probably end up buying the Precision Trolling App too. Messing around with the App it looks like I can create charts that give me the depth of each harness, at different speeds, with different size weights. So for example if I am running at 1 mph by using different weights I can cover 8 to 14 feet of water and by the looks of it the “line out” on each rod will be within 2 to 8 feet of each other. Hopefully by doing this it decreases the chance of lines crossing when a fish hits and all I have to do is look at the size of the weight to know how far it was let out.

This may not make a lot of sense to some but thought I would give it a try. Given the crew on my boat I have to make things pretty simple, and that includes me. The younger guy is always looking at his phone and the older guys forget where they were when counting out how many passes of the reel they let out (was that 10 or 15 passes, **** can’t remember). Great group of guys and we have a lot of laughs.

So when I asked the original question I was just wondering if you had a preferred length of “line out” you like to use if the variables and conditions permit. The charts I plan on making are going to be from 30 feet on lower speeds to 40+ feet on higher speeds of “line out”, think that will work for me and if not I will make adjustments. Now I just hope my speed indicator and Trolling App are accurate or at least close.

Thanks again for all the responses,
Donscs

Buy some line counter rods or cheap clip on line counters.

[TrollMasterCalculator]

The Troll Master Depth Calculator app has crawler harnesses as well as many common crankbaits. It allows you to adjust speed, trolling weight, line material, etc.. as needed to fine tune your presentation.



It is currently a free download on Android or Apple & comes with 7 free lures.