Trolling Motor "technique"

[Al Agnew]

I was introduced to bass fishing by my dad, in a 14 ft. aluminum johnboat with a 15 HP Mercury and a Silvertrol trolling motor, which, at the time, was about as fine a reservoir bass fishing rig as you could find. That old Silvertrol was a big, clunky thing, powerful...but it only had one speed. So to fish with it, you had to flip the switch on and off constantly. If you left it running while trying to fish, you were moving far too fast to fish well.

So that's how I learned to use a trolling motor...constantly turning it on and off. And I've been doing it that way ever since, even with the infinitely variable speed motor I have on the jetboat now.

I just read again something I've read before, that turning a trolling motor on and off may spook fish, while leaving it on constantly does not. Now I don't know if this is true or not...always caught fish doing it my way. But I've been wondering about it.

So how do you use one? Do you keep it on at a low speed as you fish down a bank, or do you switch it on and off frequently?

[Guest]

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[Mitch f]

I know the Bass Pros who fish in Florida for the big bass never use a trolling motor at all when they are trying to sneak up on fish.

Edited to say that I listened to Denny Brauer, who is the pitching and flipping master, always uses his trolling motor on constant speed because he believes it spooks fish constantly restarting the trolling motor, combined with the fact that you are working at close quarters when you flip. When I'm fishing that advice all goes out the window and the only time I troll with a strategy is when I try to go back to a spot that I know is holding a big fish. In that case I will start downstream and troll against current to sneak up on the fish, assuming he is facing upstream.

[jdmidwest]

Turning a motor on and off will surely create more noise, the jerky motion always pops the mounting of the motor. But I seldom troll with a trolling motor, I use it to get where I am going or position a boat for the drift. Then I use a wind or current to move the boat silently into fishing waters.

[bfishn]

From experience chasing flatheads on jugs at night, any use of a trolling motor can spook them at 40 feet, and sudden changes in direction can be as bad as instant on. Same for thrownetting visible gizzard shad in the shallows, but you can get much closer to them before they spook.

Conversely, I've caught scattered, lone winter walleye that I marked only 5-6 feet below the TM transducer. The TM was on tracking mode, so it was continuously turning and ramping up and down, but the lure was trolled behind the boat. As long as I manuvered to put the lure exactly where the mark was, the fish was still there after the TM recently buzzing just a few feet overhead.

For my activities, a TM is crucial to the presentation, I just do everything I can to make it as unobtrusive as possible.

I honestly don't believe that a bass relating to cover in an aggressive ambush position will care unless you give him a crewcut with the prop. :-)

Added

The examples above where I know the TM spooked fish were all on slick water. I've not yet seen any evidence of the same when there was any significant wave action. I experimented a bit once with an underwater microphone, and can attest that even a little wind makes a lot of noise.

[Quillback]

I'm in the start-stop camp. I do set the speed to as slow as I can get away with as the TM definitely is noisier at higher speeds.

[Greasy B]

In an ideal situation the wind or current is taking me where I want to go and I'm just using the trolling motor to make minor corrections. When I am using the motor to work an area I'll turn it on and off because low speed is never low enough. There have been occasions when my battery was dying and low speed was just right.

[dtrs5kprs]

In with Quill. I fish too slowly to run it on constant. If they made 50' long power poles that would be about the right speed for me.

[stinger160]

Don't forget about a windsock, they can be a god send in controlling a boat in the wind. Really limits how much input you need to provide from the trolling motor.

[Guest]

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