Trolling flicker shads question

[5bites]

What is a good mph to start with trolling these? Is speed correlated with depth or is that more controlled with line size?

[Devan S.]

Speed wont make any difference with depth. Line size/length of line out dictates almost everything when trolling. My preference is 10/2 braid but many can and will use larger size line(braid allows you to feel much, much better when you get to talking about a 100'+ ft. of line out). 

here is a dive curve for the 6cm size. 

Speed will be dictated by how aggressive fish are. Often times I can troll with my outboard at 3 mph and catch whites, crappie, and walleye but sometimes it takes the trolling motor and 1.5 mph or 2 mph to get less aggressive fish to bite or not to pull off). 

[zarraspook]

"Speed wont make any difference with depth. Line size/length of line out dictates almost everything when trolling. My preference is 10/2 braid but many can and will use larger size line(braid allows you to feel much, much better when you get to talking about a 100'+ ft. of line out). 

here is a dive curve for the 6cm size. "

"Speed will be dictated by how aggressive fish are. Often times I can troll with my outboard at 3 mph and catch whites, crappie, and walleye but sometimes it takes the trolling motor and 1.5 mph or 2 mph to get less aggressive fish to bite or not to pull off)."

 

You "nailed it" = 100%

[MrGiggles]

1.5-2.5 mph typically.

Speed has a much greater impact on depth if you are using weights of any kind, be it lead core, snap weights, etc. In that case, the slower you go, the deeper. Otherwise, within the speed window above, depth will not change much.

I also use metered Fireline or braid, with a short mono leader. 

[5bites]

Great info guys! Thank you very much!

[nomolites]

Best speed for crappies is typically in that 1.5 - 1.7 mph range; changes in speed often trigger the strike so trolling shallow “S” curves will typically get you more bites as one side will be speeding up and the other slowing down.

Mike

[5bites]

I’ve never done any trolling at all. Recently though we put an ultrex on the boat so I thought it might be something fun to try. Is this essentially and all year thing or primarily post spawn?

[MrGiggles]

28 minutes ago, 5bites said:

I’ve never done any trolling at all. Recently though we put an ultrex on the boat so I thought it might be something fun to try. Is this essentially and all year thing or primarily post spawn?

I usually have the best luck from now till mid October. Once the water dips below 60 it's pretty well over with.

[Targa98]

I know we were running our baits at about 13-14 ft bc wed hit bottom at that depth.  The days weve been up last week it seemed like the trolling motor out fished the big motor by far. I think we were around 1.3 or so. At that speed the fish were hooked well with both front and back hooks. At the higher 3 mph speed with the big motor, the fish seemed to only catch the back hook and we lost way more fish on the way to the boat

[nomolites]

27 minutes ago, Targa98 said:

I know we were running our baits at about 13-14 ft bc wed hit bottom at that depth.  The days weve been up last week it seemed like the trolling motor out fished the big motor by far. I think we were around 1.3 or so. At that speed the fish were hooked well with both front and back hooks. At the higher 3 mph speed with the big motor, the fish seemed to only catch the back hook and we lost way more fish on the way to the boat

3 is pretty fast for crappie, just depends how aggressive they are.  You can get a #7 down to 15’ with 100’ of 10/2 power pro out...after that it takes a lot more line to get any deeper.  That’s where snap weighrsor lead come in as mentioned earlier.  Recently at LOZ the big females were primarily at 21’ although I could catch stragglers on the 15’ lines. On that lake anyway that seems to be the go to depth for crappie pre and post spawn...the most important thing to look for in the coming weeks is clouds of fry on your 2D...the active crappie primarily will be at the same depth.

MIke