Northwest Fishing Reports

When trolling (without a downrigger or a line-counter reel), what's the best way to determine depth?

I hate to not be of much help, but its basically off experience. You learn by the amount of weight you put on your line, thickness of line, lure (if it has a lot of drag or none) and anything attached to your line. Speed of troll also determines it a lot, as does amount of line out.

You can try and help yourself by counting your "pulls" of line if you manually pull out equal amounts of line when letting your gear out, instead of casting or just opening the bail....

That's a tough one Mikey. Some lures dive to a certain depth, and divers will give you an approximation as to how deep you are depending on how much line you have out. But if you are just using lead, it's really tough to figure out exactly how deep you are. What I'd recommend is going with the "number of pulls" method. Let out 20 pulls (or however many you want to start with) and see if you get fish. If not, let out 5 more and see if you get anything. Continue to let out pulls until you find fish. You may not know exactly how deep you are in feet, but you will know how deep you are in pulls, and should be able to stay at the "fishy" depth on a consistent basis.

I like the idea behind the pull method. Just to add to what Drewp and Sam have stated, you can measure the distance from where you normally hold your reel to your hand as your arm is extended out. This will at least give you a general idea about how much line you have out. If you pull out 25 pulls as mentioned before and the distance you measured is 36" you should have roughly 900" or 75' (+/- a couple feet) of line in the water...or close thereabouts.


Chad

I have a counter on my steelhead rig and it is nice to know how far out you are whwn you get into them, and it does matter wheter it is a diving plug or not. Boat speed really makes the most difference--slowe is lower. I also troll with lead line too which is 10 yards per color with a 20 foot leader. I use Super Dupers and Needle fish which have little to no weight. I also think when you turn, the line drops and then goes back up when you straighten out which seems to elicit strikes.

If you are trolling rapalas, Rapala has a small book they market that gives the diving characteristics of their lures. Tells how far down they are based on length of line out and diameter of line. I believe it baselines a certain trolling speed.

Even though I have this book I believe it borders on trying to "separate flyspecks from pepper" as one should be paying attention to fishing when they are out and not the minute details.

It's easy to tell when you are trolling on the suface or on the bottom... but picking the correct mid-depth is a bit harder. This book might make it easier to troll mid depth with more confidence.

Meanwhile, back to checking out the pepper.

one more thing, on line counters. I see some reasonably priced clip one line counters for sale in the Cabela's catalog. I keep meaning to order one. For about $15 you can have a line counter on any rod you want. It clips on and off.

THANKS BILL, IM GOING TO GET ME 1 ON SATURDAY. I THINK IT WILL MAKE A HUGE DIFFERENCE ON LAKE WASH.

Buy leadcore line from Cabelas and every 10 yards is a different color. 10 colors = 100 yards, which is plenty. It gets you down real deep in the summer, in the winter split shots work great as most fish hit in 5-10' of water. If you troll at 2.0mph and are out 4 colors, you'd be out roughly 35-40 feet. Just my experience.

Thanks Guys! That will help.

I saw the line at cabelas. We've been looking for that line for a while, but never found any in the stores. We'll have to order some. The clip on line counter sounds interesting too. A bit better than buying a whole new reel with a line counter on it. I'll look into that as well.

The pull thing will work great until we get a more reliable method. I guess it doesn't really matter how deep, but that you pay attention and stay consistent.