New to board & to trolling

[Eyezcrazy]

My program is trutrips 40's with church inlines.........no problem pulling them.

[walleye2go]

I second what Wes said. Mono is much easier for inlines. I caught many limits last year on mono, inlines, 2 ounce weights, and harnesses. Seriously, you can get as technical as you want, but you can catch many many fish on that basic set up. In my opinion, mono will be much better to start with for the stretch it adds. If you've never trolled before, you'll need to be careful with those fish at the back of the boat. Back the drag off, keep the rod low, and never pump. braid just complicates matters for the beginner adding in the no stretch factor. Good luck out there!

Greg

[ebijack]

My most used inlines are just the rounded bead chain ones that I paint black. I started painting my inlines black a few years ago due to when I run mini disks, the black ones for me really out produce the other colors I have, so I started with just a couple painting them black, now I have over a dozen I have painted black. Same thing I used to do with the dipies, all were painted black.

[wakina]

My program is trutrips 40's with church inlines.........no problem pulling them.

Welcome aboard Hoytman86:

Exactly Eyezcrazy, and at spoon speeds, I also run certain harnesses in the same spread with the spoons. I have ran the hatchet blades as high as 2.5 GPS with no apparent problems. I run mostly T-T 40's behind the church TX-22 boards and if I need a couple of more boards I run my Church walleye boards in the same spread, I have encountered no problems with either. I also have a set of the TX-44 boards but they pull way to hard for my liking so they set most of the time. I have been running braid for the last 9 or 10 years and have had little if any trouble with it.

"WARNING" Braid is dangerous if it becomes snagged on the bottom and will cut you to the bone if taken into an unprotected hand to try and free it. It could even cut a finger off if it was to get into the joint area under this type of circumstance.

The main reason that I have lost fish is because of Eyes being pulled to the top by a jet and then surfing and flopping around on the surface with the water entering their open mouth putting extra weight on the hook up point. If that happens I stop reeling and keeping pressure on the fish lower the rod tip as low as I can get it to the water to pull the Jet and fish back under the surface, most fish keep their mouth closed under the conditions being retrieved creates. Sometimes this is caused by horsing the fish back to the boat so a slow steady retrieve is better than a speed demon landing attempt. Any fish that is solidly hooked will stay that way unless the fisherman does something wrong. A lot of the lightly hooked fish get off by being horsed in and the hook pulls out. Once mono has stretched to its max (planer board wt. and water resistance, fish weight and water resistance, diver or inline wt. plus water resistance, it is no different than braid with the exception that if a fish dashes toward the boat for an instant the mono will take up some of the slack that would be created, in braid there would be no elastic effect to compensate for this slack. That is the reason to keep a tight line on the fish with at least some bend in the rod so the rod can absorb some of the boat ward surges a hooked fish take.

[Hoytman86]

Thanks again to all for the answers.

Here's what we've got so any further input can be more precise:

Church Walleye boards w/tattle flags (1 per side)

Abu Garcia Ambassador 6500 line counters on Cabela's Depthmaster 9' trolling rods

I will be making my own harnesses, both spoon and traditional crawler harnesses

We will be using an electric trolling motor and GPS to dial in the speed

Leaning towards the inline sinkers - the bead sinkers that Ebijack suggested

17lb mono for now - most likely Trilene XL because I've used it for years on my catfishing rigs and never had a problem.

I will most likely be putting a few of our batcasters off the corners of the boat. These will have to be a guess at the line I let out because I can't afford to buy more line counters right now. I'll run these on inline sinkers as well.

Also, thanks for the warning on the braided line. I've used it for largemouth fishing in the past. We always wrapped in around a Leatherman and pulled when we were hung. It'd straighten a hook before it'd break. I just don't want to invest double the money in spooling two new reels.

Now if anyone can figure out what the difference (besides the price) is in these two listings, I'd be happy to hear it:

Church Tackle Pro Pack 1

Church Tackle Pro Pack 2

[walleye2go]

If your finances are tight, the only thing I would do different is buy 1 more board and run 2 on 1 side and not run the other side until you have another board to go with it. you will have great difficulty knowing what is going on with just one board per side. With 2 boards on a side you will be able to compare how they are running and know if you have a fish on. I read though you have tattle flags so maybe it will work with one per side.

[Hoytman86]

If your finances are tight, the only thing I would do different is buy 1 more board and run 2 on 1 side and not run the other side until you have another board to go with it. you will have great difficulty knowing what is going on with just one board per side. With 2 boards on a side you will be able to compare how they are running and know if you have a fish on. I read though you have take flags so maybe it will work.

I'm considering buying another pair of boards. I'm trying to figure out what the difference is between those two items at Cabela's, the descriptions are word for word, with the exception the cheaper one says "a Double-Action flag system" while the more expensive says "two Double-Action flag systems". I just can't figure why they would sell a pair of boards with only one flag. Both say "Port & Starboard Church Walleye boards" and have the same board dimensions as "The Walleye" planer board.

Edit: We will also have 3 pairs of eyes on the boat, so we should be able to keep an eye on the boards to watch them lag if they get hit. The rods off the corners both have clickers, and with the amount of catfishing I've done in rivers I've learned to set the drag so that any click is a fish. I'm less worried about those than I am the boards. The only reason for the financial constraints is that we're buying all of this gear in one go. I think I mentioned in my original post that we've fished walleye on Lake Erie for years casting crawler harnesses, it just seems that trollers wind up bringing in more fish and if we're going to spend the money to go up, we may as well make sure we do everything we can to catch all the fish we can.

Last question I've got is, do we need to buy spare clips for the boards? If so, is it due to them breaking or do they just wear out after continued use? Which do most people prefer, and is the brand & model of board the determining factor to which clips to use?

[wakina]

Now if anyone can figure out what the difference (besides the price) is in these two listings, I'd be happy to hear it:

Church Tackle Pro Pack 1

Church Tackle Pro Pack 2

They should both be identical! Just checked the Cabela's site and they are one and the same. But the higher priced set is in the price range for the TX-22 boards with the double action flags which cost a little bit more. Not sure what their thoughts are on the two different adds, Church only makes one Double action flag system which works on both the Walleye Board series and the TX-22 Board series. They also market a pro pack for both models with the advertised double action flag systems. The black clips pictured attach to the double action flag system slide wire and they do not work with braid very well if at all. I converted a set for the TX-44 boards by just using a longer wire but the black clip would not hold the braid. That clips only purpose is to allow the flag to be pulled down or released when there is a fish on.

[Eyezcrazy]

Hoytman.....to answer your question about the clips. They wear out pretty fast, I do not keep buying clips, I just wrap the line around the clip once to keep it from slipping. It takes a little longer to release the board but we don't have to worry about the board slipping or constantly replacing clips. I'm sure others will have different opinions on that, but it works great for me.

BTW.....I shoot hoyt too! carbon element and ultraelite

[wakina]

Quote "Last question I've got is, do we need to buy spare clips for the boards?"Unquote


There is no back release clip on the Church Boards, the board is held on the line with a pin in the back of the board. The front clip is the one and only clip that holds the line in the proper set depth position. You should not have any problems with those front clips as long as you adjust them tight enough so the line does not slip thru it, it is adjusted for tightness with a small Phillips screw driver. If you fail to adjust it tight enough (pull on the line after it is inserted into the clip to check for slippage there should be absolutly none!) under the actual fishing use the slippage of the line thru the clip will cut the rubber gripping surface and render that clip useless as the board will slide all the way down to your bait. In 10 years I have replaced 4 clips due to me failing to check for slippage those are the only 4 clips that I have replaced out of 6 boards. Check the clip for slippage with both dry and wet line, the same line that is going to be on your fishing rods. It is much easier to check it while still at home when you assemble your new boards.