Have often heard not to fish memories. When I look back however over my own fishing career, some of my greatest fishing memories involved trolling deep diving crankbaits over deep water. So many situations from mid-summer on where traditional live bait locations and tactics just got tougher. Situations where big fish were difficult to find until we put deep diving crank baits behind the boat and focused on deep contours or in some cases, suspended fish.
Above: Trolling deep diving crankbaits on deep structure is a big fish tactic come mid-summer.
Of course, deep is relative but typically, we were often trolling over twenty to forty-five feet of water. The popularity of snap weights, lead core and sometimes wire has changed the trolling game dramatically over the past twenty years. As the summer wears on however, I still find myself going back to the big billed, deep diving lures that you can flat line down to deeper depths by just using thin diameter braided line.
Bigger fish especially, often prefer the larger profile and water displacement of a deep diving crankbait that has the mass and bill to dive to twenty feet or more. A lure that can touch down in thirty feet of water simply moves much more water than a much smaller lure behind lead core or snap weights.
As summer progresses, we often catch many of our biggest fish trolling deep diving lures over deep water. The types of locations we target can vary amongst different fisheries but typically we find ourselves contour trolling along some type of edge. The edges of the old river channel are often the focus on the Missouri River reservoirs of Fort Peck, Sakakawea and Oahe. Deep troughs like the Paris Trench are often great deep trolling locations on natural lakes like Leech Lake. Pulling in and off the deep mud flats is a classic pattern on Mille Lacs. Shipping channel edges are a classic location on Great Lakes fisheries.
Shared via Salmo USA – continue reading here.
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