Planer Board Advice & Weekend Report

[Dr.Ed]

I run Church Walleye boards, a pair off each side, about 90' to 100' out, running then in tandum about 6' apart, with the same presentation on each board. As long as you maintain a fairly straight line, it is not hard to see when one of the boards has a little extra weight on it as the separation will be quite obvious. On my boat the saying goes "When in doubt, check it out."

[Jiga-Byte]

I rub Church Walleye boards, a pair off each side, about 90' to 100' out, running then in tandum about 6' apart, with the same presentation on each board. As long as you maintain a fairly straight line, it is not hard to see when one of the boards has a little extra weight on it as the separation will be quite obvious. On my boat the saying goes "When in doubt, check it out."

Ed, I've been letting the outside boards out further from the boat. Typically 120 back on the outside board, and then 90 on the inside board. Same as you mentioned (a pair each side). Should I not be doing that? Should they both be let out the same amount of line? Pardon my ignorance, this is my first year running boards.

[dgf2250]

I'm new at this and had similar issues, except I'm trying to learn on big boards. We got skunked Friday afternoon in the Mouse Reef to American Eagle area. We saw lots of marks, but all we caught were large sheephead. We didn't have any problems with knowing we had a junk fish on with those sheephead. They ripped the line out of the release in a somewhat dramatic fashion. On Saturday, we fished southeast of Kellys and did better. We caught seven walleye in about five hours which is actually better than we had ever done before. This weekend was my first time running more than four lines. Prior to this year, we used two planer boards and two lines straight off the back regardless of the number of anglers. On Sunday, we caught 11 in under three hours. I'm convinced we would have hit our three man limit if we would have stayed out longer. We probably could have reached the limit in the three hours if I had detected the white perch and white bass better. The action Sunday was the best I'd ever seen, but I'm inexperienced, so that's not saying much. With big boards, I monitor the rod tips looking for one to be bent more than the others. I also monitor the stretch of the rubber bands that I use to attach the braid line to the planer board release. My board rods are all identical. The lesson I learned this weekend was that if you think you should check a line, DO IT! This applies to the inline boards also. If one of your boards is running differently than the others, check it. There was one point where the middle rod tip was bent more than the others on one side. We got a fish on the other side and I said to myself "check that line once this fish is in the cooler" When I finally turned my attention back to that rod, it was consistent with the other two. I said to myself "looks like whatever it was, it's gone now" Wrong. The reality is all three lines had junk at that point. In fact, one of the lines had two white perch; one each on the two hooks of a worm harness. To be effective, I'm going to have to know my equipment well enough to be able to distinguish between a line with the tackle running normally and a line with junk, or even a line where the tackle isn't running right such as tangled lines, etc. Case in point, we went about an hour where we'd get a walleye on this one line just about as quick as we could get the line out. That line was the only one catching fish and I'm telling my buddy it's too bad that I only have one of those new UV spoons we had on it. After all, if it's the only line catching fish, it must be the ticket right? When it came time to pack up, much to my surprise, all five of the other lines had a white bass or white perch on. We ran like that for at least 45 minutes. We were effectively only fishing with one line. No wonder that one spoon was the only one producing. What's kind of funny is that I want on a charter specifically to learn to troll. I've adopted the captain's system. He spent a lot of time explaining how to monitor the lines and at the time, I didn't think it was important. I still listened, but was dismissing most of what he was saying because the particular day we were out with him, we weren't catching small junk fish. It was either a walleye or sheephead and it didn't seem important. Doing this on my own without an experienced charter captain and experienced first mate is a completely different ball game. I think the biggest key to your success will be to pay close attention to the details and to know your equipment well enough to be able to spot differences

[ebijack]

Might I suggest when running inline boards, once the board and bait are out where you want them, clicker on, lighten the drag to just where it does not constantly click. Once in awhile is good. Tougher in rough water as the board jump the waves but still doable. This will alert you to something happening. Anything other than what the weight that is being pulled ( board and bait) should make the clicker click!
I don't run church boards on my boat, on friends boats that do run them, like mentioned. The Church boards run different than the Offshore so keep one brand on one side, the other on the other side of the boat. With the Offshore, I'd suggest scrapping the springs, and use #32 ? rubber bands. Cut a V notch at the top hole at the front of the board, put the rubber band either looped around the flag stem or around the wire then around the clip arm. The rubberband will stay in place and you can adjust the tension perfectly in seconds. I've been doing this for many years.

[Greatwhitehunter]

Run all spoons no meat you will catch less junk!

[Jiga-Byte]

Great advice everyone. Thanks for the input. I'm definitely going to try the rubber bands on the Offshore boards. Thanks for the tip EbiJack.