I'll throw in my experience, I will try a couple trolling angles once fish are caught to see if one direction is better or not. Not quite 1/3 of the time but close, I find trolling into the waves is a better bite or equally as good as trolling with or quartering the waves. I go more by feel/experience on speed when trolling into the waves. I never use the rod tips as a visual reference. I just don't find it accurate enough for me. I prefer Offshore boards using a Church super clip on the rear and an orange Offshore clip on the front. At any time I can snap the rod ( actually hitting the butt) and the front clip will release if it did not release on it's own. Rarely is a board ever lost and those times it is due to someone not installing it correctly. I can easily run 10 Offshore boards and 2 down rods off the side with heavy bouncers. As long as you have 2 other experienced crew members. With the front clip released, the board falls out of formation to the rear of the boat and you are not fighting the board at all. Also the releasing front clip releases when a fish takes the board under and you are able to keep tension on the fish and not fight the board. I prefer not to troll into the waves, but a lot of times you catch a lot more fish doing it.