Fishing Techniques:
A Trolling Primer - Part I

Lures, Rigging & Teasers

There are several different categories of trolling lures. We group them into: trolling jigs, plugs, swim baits, and squids.

Trolling jigs consist of a heavy head or body, usually with a skirt of some sort. A heavy leader is run through the head, and a hook or hooks are tied on. The jig is allowed to slide freely up the leader. Heads can be made of cast or machined metal, plastic or polyurethane. Skirts can be feathers, hair (natural or synthetic), plastic or silicone skirts, nylon bristles, or nothing at all. One of the most effective lures of all time is the simple cedar plug, which is basically just a bullet-shaped lead head followed by a tapered cedar cylinder and a big single hook.

Trolling jig heads come in many different types of shapes and sizes: simple bullets, chuggers, slant heads, jets, propellers, you name it. Bullets or jets with plastic skirts are great all-around lures. While they are commonly rigged with double or tandem hooks, I prefer a single larger hook with the barb crushed or filed down.

Plugs include “thin minnows”, such as Rapala’s Xrap, Yo-zuri’s Hydro-Mag, and Bomber’s Model A, and lipless vibrating plugs, such as Yo-zuri’s Bonita and Braid’s Li’l Speedster and Blades. Key things to look for include: rugged construction (which usually means an internal wire frame to keep the hooks together, even if the plug body itself is destroyed), and salt-water style hooks (cad- or nickel-plated, or stainless steel, larger gap).

Plugs need to run true when trolled. Many older-style plugs, especially those with metal bills or wooden bodies, run to one side when used right out of the box. These have to be carefully tuned to run straight at trolling speeds, and might have to be readjusted after every fish. The newer all-plastic plugs usually run true right out of the box, but you do need to keep an eye on them.

Most plugs feature large treble hooks, which can be extremely dangerous when trying to land a large fish. A badly-timed shake of the head could result in the angler and the fish being firmly connected via the plug. Some lures have double or single hooks instead of trebles, and would be preferred. You can also replace treble hooks with doubles or singles, but care must be taken not to upset the balance of the plug. Fred Archer, a noted big game fisherman, has also had good luck with large circle hooks instead of “J” style hooks.

Swimbaits are leadhead jigs with soft plastic tails that wiggle. Swimbaits used for offshore trolling have 1 – 3 oz heads, and tails ranging in size from 3.5 – 5 inches long. These can also be cast if you like.

Squids are hollow soft vinyl skirts that are closed on one end. The closed end is shaped like the head of an octopus or squid and has a painted eye. Squid can be surprisingly deadly, despite their simple appearance. They are usually run with a small weight in the head, as part of a larger teaser / lure combination.

Great examples of this are the spreader bars and dredges from noted big game fisherman Fred Archer. His bars are made up exclusively of squid, and are available in various sizes and colors. They are light, easy to handle, and look amazingly like a small school of baitfish swimming in the wake.

Color selection is not as critical as you might expect. "Conventional wisdom" says to use dark colors early or late in the day or when it’s over-cast, and light colors when it’s bright. However, it's ultimately up to the fish. Don't be afraid to do the opposite or mix them up. Once the fish start telling you what they want, you should switch the spread over to the preferred color.

• In trolling jigs and squid, popular light colors include white, pink, green/white, blue/white, red/white, green/yellow, zuchinni (green/white/black), and Mexican flag (green/white/ red/orange); popular dark colors include green/black, black, purple, and black/purple.
  
  
• Plug colors can be all over the map, but typical light colors include chrome, silver, or white with a color (black, blue, green), and gold or yellow with green. Typical dark color is purple with a black back or stripes.
  
  
• Swimbait colors include blacks and purples, metal-flake bodies with black and blue back, solid pearl or white, and green metal-flake.
  
  

Lure size is actually more critical than color. The general rule is to buy an assortment of sizes that match the size of the predominant bait. In the last two seasons, very small bait has been common, so a number of successful fishermen have been using jigs in the 2.5” – 3” range. But lures in the 4 -6” range are more common.

So where do you start? A good basic assortment would include:

• Some small trolling jigs (3") (jets or bullets) in black/purple or black/green, and Mexican flag or blue/white or red/white
  
  
• Some larger jigs (5 - 7"), same style heads and colors
  
  
• A cedar plug or two
  
  
• Some thin minnow plugs in black/purple, green/gold, and blue/chrome
  
  
• A few 2 ounce lead heads with black/purple swimbaits
  
  

Terminal Tackle and Rigging

Leaders and terminal tackle can range from very simple to very complicated. Assuming that your reel is filled with monofilament, conventional terminal tackle rigging starts with adding a double line to the end of the main line, using a Bimini Twist or Australian Plait. An Offshore Knot or Uni-knot is used to tie a good ball-bearing snap swivel to the double line.

The double line can be quite long according to IGFA rules (up to 20’ for the line tests we are talking about), but from a practical perspective, you can keep it short. One - two feet is fine, since its main purpose is to make sure the knot to the swivel is at least 100% of the main line strength.

From there, it depends on the lure. I usually clip plugs and swimbaits directly to the snap swivel on the double line. For trolling jigs, a short (3 – 5’) leader of heavy mono or fluorocarbon (60 – 300lb test) is used. On the end connecting to the main line, a ball bearing swivel or a ring is tied or swaged on. The snap swivel from the main line is clipped to this swivel or ring. The other end is inserted through the head of the jig, and a hook is swaged or tied on. This arrangement allows you to switch lures easily. Sometimes beads or a short length of plastic tubing are used as a spacer to position the hook further back in the skirt.

The leader for trolling jigs is kept short to make it easier to handle fish at boat side. Since you can’t reel in past the swivel, long leaders require someone to use the leader to handline the fish in the last few feet.

Many experienced anglers prefer “wind-on” leaders, which do away with swivels, snaps and bulky knots altogether. These are great systems, but are an advanced technique, beyond the scope of this article.

Teasers

Earlier in this article, we mentioned “teasers”. Teasers are hookless lures or baits that are added to the spread to help attract fish by making the spread appear like a larger school of bait, or like a school of bait being pursued by a small predator.

This can involve adding more lures to the spread, or making more noise and splashing. Teasers include devices called “birds” (large surface plugs with small fins on either side, that wobble and splash when trolled), daisy chains (a string of several hookless lures attached one after another on a leader), spreader bars
Bird Teaser
(Click for larger image) (a group of several short daisy chains held apart using thin bars of composite material or metal), dredges (imagine two spreader bars, oriented at right angles to each other to form an “umbrella”), large hookless trolling jigs, and modified boat fenders. There are also numerous other gadgets that don’t do anything except add noise or flash, such as the WaveWalker.

All have their proponents and detractors, but in general, teasers are a good thing to have in the spread, if you can deal with the added hassles of managing them. In that regard, there have been a number of innovative fishermen who have worked hard at reducing the hassle and increasing the effectiveness of things such as spreader bars and dredges.

Fred Archer, a noted big-game fisherman, has spent literally a lifetime perfecting his composite spreaders bars. His bars are tough, light, pretty much tangle-free, and available in a wide range of sizes, styles, and colors. They can be used effectively without a lot of hassle, and Fred considers the combination of a “new age” spreader bar with a trailing squid lure one of the best offshore combinations available, for almost all types of fish.

I've never used this type of tackle before, but have recently invested in several of Fred's spreader bars and one of his spider dredges. His approach makes sense, and seems like it would be one of the best ways to make the boat seem like a large school of panicked baitfish. Look for progress reports on our discussion forums as the summer progresses.