Thread: The Walleye Channel

Awesome. I'm glad you are getting out there and actually experiencing the stuff first hand. Sometimes the learning curves are steep. This is one of those cases where you might be well served to watch someone else to rectify your board issues. I'll do my best to try and explain it. BUT... that said, I still get the same thing from time to time.

You normally don't have a ton of issues when you are running the bait on your close board (board A) with a short setback (say 45 feet). When board B (the outside board in a two board spread) is set at 70 feet back there is a big difference between the two setbacks and tangles are unlikely. Where you start running into issues is when your setbacks are close to one another OR, you are running similar depths. If for example, board A has a 50 setback and board B has a 60 setback, chances are high that, unless using some learned techniques, you ARE going to get tangles.

FYI, your assesment of waves and current is pretty spot on. That can have an influence. SO, here is what we do to try and mitigate the tangle issues.

Board A: Run it closer to the boat. Board B, run it down the center WAY FURTHER than you want it away from the boat. Let it ride in to position and then reel in the difference. When only running two boards, you can keep them further apart and this will avoid the tangles. When running three or more, it is VERY important to let that board go WAY out the back and ride into postion. This is a trick I learned after watching Kevin. Another trick (which I used this weekend and Steve got to witness). After you let that outside board ride up in to position. Start cranking it in a little ways. This often will produce a strike. Another trick is to let them out a little bit. Again, with following fish, this will produce strikes.

When the outside board goes off, and this is extremely important. DON'T start reeling. Let the weight of the fish pull the board way back so that it is almost inline with the other board before you start reeling. This is hard to do but works great. As long as there is tension on the line, you will not lose the fish. You still get tangles, it is unavoid able. Especially when you are running very similar setbacks. Running more than two boards isn't much different. Just have to pay attention to how much line you allow out the back of the boat to avoid one bait running overtop of another one.

As for towing fish. Do not feel bad. It takes a little while of watching boards for countless hours before you devolp a sense that you have something on. Sometimes, you are wrong but, more often than not, you are right. We towed a few around for 5 or so minutes knowing that we THOUGHT we had a fish on. We monitored the board very closely and eventually, saw somthing slight enough to warrent reeling it in.

Speed is another factor with this. A lot of times, some of these fish (salmon included) will be content swimming along with the baits. That reeling in or letting the board out trick is one of the best ones I have used in this scenario when I "think" there is a fish on.

The more you go, the more you know. I know that the navionics chips (although not great in some areas as we have witnessed) are pretty good for the bay. Just like with other electronics, (and I don't know why) some offer great maps of some locations and lousy ones of others. Lowrance maps have been great for the bay and other bigger bodies of water but they are lacking in the smaller lakes just as Navionics and lakemaster have their pro's and Con's.

All in all, you went out, were successful, and came back having learned some things and having questions on others. Once you get explainations to the questions, the picture get clearer.

All boards were set to the same length/depth, of 20 foot @ 81 feet of line. So that may have been my issue. However, 1st time, I did the same thing and had no issues. Maybe I was doing something wrong that was right.

Guessing from reading above, that I should have them staggered in depth like Salmon? 2 Board scenario would be similar to similar to Inside Board @ 20 Foot Depth/81 foot of line, and Outside board 18 Foot Depth/67 Feet of line, Add a third board even farther out at say 15 foot depth/51 Foot of line. This allows the outside boar to go over the board to its inside.

Is that Correct? or opposite, Deep lines to the outside?

I was marking fish on the bottom, and set EVERYTHING to the bottom. Even the 103 foot Bottom Bouncers......

Longer leads to the outside. Shorter leads to the inside. You can run identical setbacks, just stagger like I discussed and you will be fine.

Example: Outside board is a DDHJ running 90 feet back (15 feet down). Middle board is a flicker at 75 back (15 feet down) inside board is a 1oz snap weight back 45 (15 feet down).

They all run the same depth but the setback keeps you out of trouble.

Again, you can run the same baits and setbacks, just stagger the boards further.

Here is something else. Once you get past 15 feet, the dive curve is narrow. Takes wzy more line to hit the next foot. So, one bait back 75 and one bait back 90 are pretty close to the same desired depth.

Another thing to pay attention to if your getting these tangles, is the crankbaits themselves, always check to see if there running true and not left or right. A left or right running bait with a weird cross wind/ current will lead to a lot of tangles.
So let’s say you have dialed in your depth ,color and speed , and all of your setbacks are pretty much the same if not exactly the same on all the lines, and the outside board goes off, you release the board, let it fall behind the boat and reel the fish in. So now instead of putting that board back to the outside just move the inside board to that outside position and put this one to inside spot. Now there’s no guess work about how far to let the board fall back and if they will get tangles
This past weekend when uncle Al and I were over on the bay, I noticed he was trying to do as I did when resetting a board back to the outside position. His issue was judging how far to let it fall back before engaging the reel, so I would have to constantly remind him to either let more line out or less line My permanent fix was to only run 2 boards on his side and one down rod out the back and always shift the rod positions when outside board was brought in.


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Awesome point Kevin! I completely forgot about this when running the same setbacks. It is something you see done when running big boards!

For me the majority of the time, I like a slight stagger in my baits. As I said before, once you get down around 15 feet with these baits, it takes a great deal more line to reach the next 1 foot of depth. So, running an 80 and a 90 setback is pretty darn close.

Here is another tip that everyone fishing my boat has liked (except Steve who is color blind). I alternated the color of my flags. I run an orange flag and then a green flag. It makes a huge difference. Instead of looking at 4 orange flags and trying to tell someone which rod to grab, you can now say the 1st green one, or the second orange one!

Colorblind Steve likes them in numerical order starting from stern going forward if multiple rods.....
1=inside board
2=next one out
3=you get the idea
and so on.




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Colorblind Steve & Pollock Oneida May have to go out and try and catch some.

Rich or Kevin, maybe even Ready2Fish,

So I was looking at boats on sale, and saw a boat that had a 36 Volt Ulterra at the bow & a Minnkota 36 Volt Transom Mount 300. (Could be two motor guides for all I care in this scenario.)


So with one at the Bow, and one at he transom, could you effectively have them both pointed upwind, with the boat in any position you want, and not have to worry about the bow staying in the wind when drifting the DR? You should in theory be able to make you boat drift almost sideways to the wind if you wanted correct?

Just an idea that crossed my Pollack mind, when I saw that boat with two trolling motors.

OE