New to Trolling

Hello everyone, this will be my first post on the forum. I've been fishing Erie as long as I can remember and it's by far my favorite place to fish, but it's always been by drift fishing, which admittedly works very well to catch white bass and drum which the rough-fisherman in me loves catching. However, we decided that we wanted to started catching walleye more consistently than two per year and wanted to catch lake trout period. So, we decided to setup our boat for trolling.

We don't exactly have a fishing boat so it looks kind of odd with all kinds of trolling equipment on it, but it works for now haha. Anyway, we have a 215 express cruiser sea ray (22') with a 250hp Inboard/Outboard (we're docked in PA, not far from our beach cottage). Which really isn't a good motor for trolling but to avoid spending a grand on a trolling motor we bought a spring loaded trolling plate (troll-a-matic) in hopes of slowing down our minimum/trolling speed without slowing down our max cruising/travel speed, I'm hoping this plate will work well enough to troll slow enough. We also have a lowrance HDS-5 gen2 fish finder we just got as well to replace an old, broken, 17 year old hummingbird. We have 2 downriggers we got the other day (Cannon Easi-Troll STs) which I'm thinking won't have enough space to mount on the side of the boat and still be able to fit on our boat cover so we're currently building an 8' oak trolling board to mount the downriggers on that can be removed when not in use. I'm really hoping this board holds up as the way we are mounting it is we are attaching some hardwood dial rod to the oak board with brackets and the dial rod will slide into some 6" deep (2" diameter) flush mount stainless-steel rodholders that we have on the back of our boat for drift fishing. So, as you can see, we have a pretty "modified" speed boat that we're trying to make into a fishing boat (might be cheaper just to buy a used fishing boat lol).

Getting into the reason that I made this thread though. Both myself and my dad are both completely new to trolling and have never been fishing with anyone who trolls before so we know absolutely nothing about troll fishing erie (or anywhere for that matter) other than the very basic things. We really want to get some nice walleye this summer though and lake trout have always been a dream fish of mine even to just catch one in my life would make me happy (but let's hope that's not all I catch for all the money we just spent!). So, I'm looking for some advice from erie anglers here on the best ways, techniques, lures, places, etc to catch Lake Trout and Walleye on Erie, if you'd prefer not to share your best spots on here feel free to PM me and don't worry I won't fish out your spot, I'm often yelled at for releasing to many fish including every perch we catch all day haha.

But yes, pretty much any tips you guys have for a newb to trolling would be much appreciated! The next time we'll be up to erie for fishing will be this weekend from Friday-Monday (5/22 - 5/25) and then for the rest of the summer every or every other weekend. I'm up there pretty much whenever I'm not (scuba) diving.

To start out, I'm going to be focusing almost entirely on Lake Trout for this coming weekend and then mainly walleye for the weekends after that since I theorize after May it gets a bit hard to catch lake trout on the US side, correct me if I'm wrong though as I'd like to catch lake trout as long as I physically can on the US side this year regardless of water depth. My plan for lakers as of now is to fish the southern edge of the mountain (which I've never been to so I have to find first haha, if anyone has coordinates of a good place to start fishing at the mountain I'd really appreciate some!) and troll from East to West with Spoons around 1.5 mph. That's open to changes though if there's a better way to catch them, like I said I'm a catch and release fisherman so I just want to catch and put back as many lakers as I can this weekend before the season is over for them.

I'm also looking for any Walleye tips you guys have for all the weekends after this one because that's what I'll be targeting for the rest of the summer mainly. I haven't done much research into walleye yet as I've been busy looking up lake trout information lately.

Thanks for the help and here's hoping I'll have lots of pictures of fish from this weekend to show for it!

-Sean

I'm pretty sure a dial rod wont stand up to the torque an 8' hardwood board and 2 riggers will put on it.  If you have flush mounted rod holders, look into a couple of quality gimbal mounts. 
http://www.fishusa.com/pr...m9Ox0MUCFcoXHwod81AA-Q
 
If that plate doesnt work get yourself a pair of amish outfitters bags.  They will slow you down enough for sure, and some days catch you more fish.  I use them sometimes when its rough to prevent too much surge in my lines.
https://amishoutfitters.c...5dba6647f4b2b16babfb22
 
Trolling can get complicated and very very expensive.  My best advice to you as someone starting out is to start with something basic, like 4 dipsy rods.  Look up out to properly calibrate your line counters and get a dive curve chart.(I cant stress this enough, if you don't calibrate your line counters then you have no idea where your lures are)  On each side you will have 1 rod on the inside on a 1.5 setting and 1 rod on the outside with 3.5 setting.  Once you get comfortable with this and have some success then move to another thing like planer boards.  
 
If you really want to learn in a hurry book a charter.  Seriously. You will learn more in that 1 day than you would in a few summers of weekend fishing on your own.
 
 

pm sent

Here is a vid on calibrating. If you dont do this, then your linecounter may say 100' but you might really have 50' of line out, or even 150'.  Basically if you dont do this your linecounter is useless.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNHHef2oIEo

Looked at that line counter video now and that's going to be difficult to do. I've already got all the line on my reels that they can take and don't have enough extra to spool them both up again. Just going to hope they woke accurately I suppose. I have a feeling we're going to get skunked for the first few weekends doing this until we get good at it.

If you don't get into any Lakers at the mountain, Raystown is always a good option. We caught them there through June in the past and again in the fall. Not the monsters like Erie has but I got a nice 30 incher there a few years back.

I'm fairly new to trolling as well, but a lot of the suggestions these guys gave are spot on. I do the tape measure thing as well to calibrate my line counters, but for me I do it so I know all my rods are the same. So if I am catching fish on one rod 150' back I can duplicate it on my other rods. I use mostly 4 dipsys and I use the same settings that were suggested above with the inside ones at a 1.5 setting and the 2 outer ones at a 3.5 setting. When using dipsys I think braided line is a must. I found that it was not productive to mix worm harnesses and spoons. The worm harnesses like a much slower speed than spoons and if you pull the worm harnesses at the faster speed the friction in the water just strips the worms right off. In fact I haven't used a worm harness in 3 years because I am much more productive with the spoons and or plugs. I also found that when trolling for walleye it is better to pull your lures over top of the fish rather than under them. A pro told me that a walleye will always feed up and never down. My favorite 3 lures are the Michigan Stinger Spoon in monkey puke color, Michigan Stinger Spoon in Watermelon with a copper back and a Watermellon colored Renosky. I hope these tips help. I also would only catch 1 or 2 per trip but now I am catching 10 to 15 once I learned a little. I know I still have a ton to learn.

Anyone have coordinates for a good starting point at the mountain?

Those speeds are too slow for spoons. Bump it up. We got around 20 and lost a bunch this morning out there.

1.6-2.0 for paddles, 2.0-2.8 for spoons. We caught em all over. No particular depth. From on the bottom to suspended 20' from the bottom

Well, did much better today. 3 for 5 fishing from 7:00 am until 4:15 pm and only lost those two because our net is way to small (buying a larger one tomorrow). Biggest landed was 30" 12 pounds and lost one around 36" 14-16 pounds right next to the boat (literally 1.5' from the boat!). Caught them all on a 4" silver and green spoon in ~75 FOW trolling 2.3-2.6 mph. Weather permitting I'll get a few hours in back there in the morning otherwise I'll hit some walleye or perch and stay close to shore. I'll probably be back in 2 weeks and chase them out to however deep they are as they're the best fighting freshwater fish I've caught in my life! Thanks to everyone who gave me pointers and experience!

Why Lakers ? Slim balls,get a 30 lb king at Olcott now that's a fighting fish or a big steelhead near 20 lbs. As for deep water trolling riggers are great for salmoniods,but boards and dippsy are walleye killers. I fished everyway possible from 79_ 92 riggers,boards,dippsys,jet divers, wire, drop balls. I you don't have line counters you can count passes on your reel. You can run 3 line off each board,outside line set the farthest back inside the least. When you get a release on the boards let the eye get behind the boat before reeling. You can run 2 dippsys off each side  inside set at 1.5 out side set on 3,same as boards outside diver set farther back. Off the riggers you can use two rods off a rigger first one down set farthest back stack the second one  with a short  lead. Sliders are deadly on summer steelhead,set rigger with a spoon a slider is a short lead with a light flutter spoon,tie about 5 feet of line to a quality sampo snap swivel,open snap and attach to your rigger rod line it will find the belly of your rigger line. Also a three way rig can be deadly flat line,off the boards or dippy You'll need a 5 foot lead on the bottom with a deep diver plug,and a short 3 foot lead with a light spoon on top. Believe me  I caught many doubles on this rig back in the hay days of eye fishing the big pond. There's a ton of Lakers out  Barcelona  Ny.
 

 I went to  Olcott  NY lake  Ontario from spring to fall and caught hundreds of salmon and steelhead . Very easy to catch once you figure a pattern,spring kings 16-20 lbs,late summer and fall they get 25-30 lbs.

Has anyone ever read this article, if so is it pretty accurate? http://www.landbigfish.co...les/default.cfm?ID=380

After reading it it seems very well put together but I see that out of over 3,000 reviews it only got a 3/10 and I can't figure out why, is the information incorrect?