Good point Dave.

If you can check out the areas you want to fish while it's still light out. You can then come up with your trolling pattern by keying in "dummy" weighpoints on your gps. to keep you away from those "hungry prop" eating rocks.

Jeff,
You havce mail

A good rule of thumb for me, as it relates to water temperature and presentations for trolling at night is:

1. 60 - 65 F, #5 and #7 Shad Raps, #10 HJ's, #7 Salmo Minnows @ 1.8 - 2.2 mph.

2. 55 - 60 F, #5 and #7 Shad Raps, #10 and #12 HJ's, #9 Salmo Minnows @ 1.5 - 1.8 mph.

3. 50 - 55 F, #12 HJ's or #9 Salmo Minnows @ 1.0 - 1.5 mph.

4. <50 F, #12 and #14 HJ's @ <1.0 mph.

Awesome Post !!!.

A ton of info there. A question I'm sure others will have is when do you use Shad raps VS Salmo's.

I always start with a shad rap, if nothing I change.

TO - do you use the floating or sinking Salmo Minnows? have you noticeda difference is useing either? Do they have better action than the Rapala Minnow Rap?
thanks

I use the floating style Minnows because it seems as though I have a little better depth control versus the sinking style. Minnow Raps are a decent option too.

I forgot to mention that #4 and #5 Salmo Hornets are also a nice option for smaller presentations.

RM, to specifically answer your question, I lean towards Shad Raps or Hornets when fishing rocks or sand/gravel but focus more on the stick-style baits when fishing cover.

The only hard evidence I have on the theory and/or strategy above is that many of my decisions about what to use revolve around food size. And, in most cases, larger forage hang in cover while smaller forage scatter and roam over sand and gravel flats.

You guys are starting to make it sound like if this isn't your home water your in trouble. Any fish in "safe" water or am I going to have to use my buddies boat?

No the guys that will be there can give you the updated water levels. Lots of good and safe water to be had. The piece that we had success on last get togther topped out at 3' with most in the 4-6 ft range on top.

That's good to hear because I'm not so crazy about fishing in skinny water, especially if its rocky.

I agree 100%. It gets even worse when there's waves bouncing you 2 feet up and 2 feet down. The only point I was trying to make is to not rely 100% on the map chips if fishing shallow, rocky water, because they are missing spots that you will hit if you're not paying attention to your depthfinder and your previous plot trails.

Dave,

Rocks and fiberglass boats are not a good combination. Even with the previous boat (aluminum) I had a hard time getting myself trolling in 3-4 ft of water.

I still like the idea of getting out there a few hours before dark and finding an area and put in "dummy weigh points" to keep yourself from those "hungry rocks".

If you get pretty familiar with a reef, its really no big deal. Some of the rocky shorelines however can be quite interesting with lots of points, humps, and contours that cut back on you as well. There was one area I was trolling last fall following that 5-6' depth range and all of a sudden the depth came up to 3' then 2' and I couldn't steer my way out of it. The contour pretty much reversed itself aways and I had to backtrack to find my way out of that inside bend. Just a little spooky bouncing around in 2-3' of water over rocks in the waves. My GPS has these areas marked out now with waypoints and obviously my memory remembers a bit about them as well but there is no map chip that will show you stuff like this. Gotta find it on your own.

Lots of fish in skinny water with no rocks nearby too.