Fishing Forum

Just got a new boat that came with 2 fish finders and a trolling motor. Going to go test it out tomorrow at Deer Creek with my dad but I've got some questions.

Both of us have always fished sitting with an anchor down and never with a fish finder. We've gone trolling once 15 years ago (when I was as a kid) and so I'm wondering if anyone has any tips on how to successfully troll tomorrow (especially if you have experience doing so at Deer Creek).

I'm going for rainbows specifically. Can you successfully troll with worms? Lure with power bait? Lure with worms?

Any help is greatly appreciated. We plan to fish near Wallsburg but since we are on a boat we can definitely move around.
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Use a worm harness with a perch or chartreuse blade and a downrigger or bottom bouncer.. Go 1-2 miles per hour, try to do gentle S-curves. Get there before first light, get on the water at least by sunrise, quit when you can see your shadow clearly because you'll be dealing with idiots on jetskis by then.
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If I were you I'd longline brown or rainbow rapalas. As the day progresses add some weight, either an inline banana weight or split shot. Gold jakes lure would be work well too. The hard thing about trolling is boat speed,you want to go slow enough to provide the right action to whatever you are presenting. Usually the slower the better, and s curves will help to catch more fish as mentioned above. If that doesn't catch fish, I love jigging transition areas, ie large rocks to sand in 14-25ft. I did well jigging last nite. Brown jigs with a hint of gold have been solid choice for
me this year. Make sure to report on how you did.
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Slow trolling pop gear followed by a night crawler has always caught fish at Deer Creek. Another choice that also works is to use a flasher or dodger instead of pop gear.
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There are plenty of trout up shallow. Trolled from 2-10 PM and hooked more trout than I wanted to. Was trolling crankbaits at 1.5-2.0 MPH and they were hitting my baits all afternoon. As mentioned above trout, perch, and crayfish colors were all getting hits. Water temp when I launched was 62 and cooled to 59 when I loaded at 10.30.

One good thing about the Wallsberg bay area is that once you go up in to bay you don't have the power squad burning past at full throttle. That might keep things a little more mellow while learning the new boat.
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