Give The Fish What They Want & How They Want It

When panfish become pesky, Hall adjusts his speed to leave them in the dust. “Sometimes,” he says, “you don’t have a choice. You have to keep speeding up until the panfish leave you alone.”

Keeping the Wind at Your Back

Like many pros, Don Wood likes to troll spinners with the wind at his back. “If you’re trying to learn boat control,” Wood says, “start by fishing downwind, because it’s easier.”

Many pros use a motor that can be set for a course and steers itself, leaving the angler free to concentrate on setting lines and detecting bites. PWT pro Ted Takasaki uses a TR-1 Autopilot for controlling his kicker motor. Mark Brumbaugh relies on a Pinpoint electric motor, which can be set to automatically follow a certain depth or even a creek channel.

Wood uses a MinnKota Auto Pilot bowmount electric until conditions become unruly enough that he needs his kicker. The kicker outboard is rigged to a Raytheon SportPilot autopilot, which allows him to steer his boat even on complex trolling passes by programming it through his GPS. “I can tell the boat to run right through the middle of a big school,” Wood says, “or along the edges of the school, or wherever the bigger fish are.”

Back to the reasons for trolling with the wind. Let’s say you have four lines out and you hook a walleye. Simply slow the motor or stall it out, depending on wind speed. Your other three lines continue to troll as you fight the fish. “My motor keeps the bow pointing downwind,” Wood says, “so I can fight the fish and keep fishing with my other lines. Many times, I end up with two or three fish on at the same time.”

Gone With the Wind

Even though it’s not their first choice, sometimes PWT pros troll into the wind. Let’s say they’ve just made a long trolling pass (might be a mile or more), and they don’t want to lose fishing time by running back to the starting point. “If the wind isn’t too bad,” Wood says, “I use the kicker to push myself up against the wind, programmed off the GPS, and use my electric to make left and right adjustments. That’s the key with going into the wind; if you can keep your bow from being blown off course, you can control the boat.”

Wood and others stress that spinners can be pulled effectively without automatic steering, but boat control becomes increasingly difficult as the wind gets stronger. A big wind makes boat control tough even when you move with the wind. When surges power you forward too fast and the stallouts that follow bring you almost to a complete stop, it’s time to employ a drift sock to slow down and make less dramatic speed changes.

Hall also makes adjustments in his tackle when a big wind causes major surge-pause cycles. “I go to a heavier weight than I’d otherwise use for the depth,” he says, “and I tend toward faster trolling speeds, so the spinner blade never stops spinning.” This may be a good time to bring up a helpful rule of thumb from PWT pro Ted Takasaki. At typical spinner speeds, Takasaki uses a 1 ounce weight for 10 feet of water, 2 ounces for 20 feet, and 3 ounces for 30 feet and deeper. Also a safety note: When fishing with the wind, if your boat is too short to span the waves, your bow could catch under and spear a wave.