Walleye S E of Kelly's

[badboards]

Caught 3 nice keepers all males biggest was 25" thought for sure it was a female big old belly on it but no eggs. First time I've ever fished with big boards still have a lot to learn. Speed was 2.5 mph. Trolling East with the wind to my back. I believe I would have caught more than three but for some reason my rubber bands didn't break size 16 not sure what that was about. Could have been dragging those fish for a couple hours. couldn't quite figure out why I wasn't catching anything there were lots of marks a commercial boat out there was tossing some pretty nice size walleye into their live well. Not sure if there was too much slack in my main line that the rubber bands were attached to. shouldn't that line be firm and tight. Hope to have it figured out by spring. Last day tomorrow hope to get some jumbo perch I'll let you know how that goes planning on fishing over by Marblehead lighthouse or somewhere around lakeside. If anybody does have any tips about how to make that main line tighter that would be great.

[itsbob]

We tried trolling with big boards for a few years and had many issues with them. Including not having the rubber band break and dragging undetected fish. Had problems with the boards not running far enough to the side of boat and the board line interfering with the rods when we made turns. Took a long time to set out and bring in boards and gear too. We finally gave up and went back to my inline boards and have not looked back. We didn't have a problem with the board line having too much slack though. That slack would most likely be the board not pulling hard enough. One solution would be to add weight to bottom of board to have it run deeper and pull harder. Good luck perchin.

[TROPHYTIME]

Need your boards to weigh more to pull harder on main line or add weight to bottom of them. I went to wooden boards and that took care of the problem. You can go online and get prints on how to make your own. That should help you.

[badboards]

Makes sense. These boards are older the brand name is Rivera. The have hinges to open and close. They are plastic with foam core. I'm wondering if I had them backwards. I had the Pointed edge going forward but the white foam faced out and yellow plastic faced in. That to me seemed weird.

[cooleyfarms]

possibly upside down?

[Fishing Tiger]

Thanks for the report. It does sound like your boards are too light.

How deep was the water? How deep were you trolling? What did you catch on?

Where you marking many fish? How deep?

[badboards]

Bandits and flickers 120 back unassisted. Perch colored got the big boy. Was marking fish all over the place any where between 10 and 40 feet. I started out in 40 and stopped in 44 feet.

[badboards]

Also might add if you want to try that area out I was in between Kelly's and Sandusky

[Capt Juls]

Makes sense. These boards are older the brand name is Rivera. The have hinges to open and close. They are plastic with foam core. I'm wondering if I had them backwards. I had the Pointed edge going forward but the white foam faced out and yellow plastic faced in. That to me seemed weird.

That would be the correct position. The "pointy end" would be beveled, to make the board go out away from the boat....just like the little inline boards.

Sounds like they were just too light for the job. The mainline should be relatively tight, so the fish can be detected by watching the rod tips. Most charters I've been on, that run big boards, didn't have rubber bands breaking most of the time, either.

[badboards]

There are 3 holes to clip the main line to the board. The person I bought them from had a key ring in the middle hole. I'll try using the hole behind it. Should open the plane up and push the board out. Like I said earlier the board is hinged so could I not open the board up all the way and make it perpendicular with each other. As far as rubber bands go the weight of it #16 it is supposed to break. I'm not using clips. some guys use both and the rubber band doesn't break just pulls out of clip to avoid false hits.