Inline Planer Boards

Magical Inline Planer Boards

3. Tattle Flag
This is an option that really separates the Off Shore inline planers from the competition. The board can be rigged with a tattle flag that shows when fish or weeds are on the line. The flag will start to go down when any resistance is added to the line. This is great way to indicate a soft bite when trolling spinners with night-crawlers or a fouled up lure when fishing weed lines. Once again the board stays on the line and you retrieve the board and the fish to the boat. This is the method I prefer to use when fishing all types of water for walleye.

4. Snap Off
The board would be released from the line when a fish strikes. Although traditionally designed to be used in this fashion, I can’t see any advantage to this as you would end up loosing your board or you would have to circle back to pick up the board in water that may be too shallow for your boat. Also going back into water that has active fish would only spook them out of the spot.

Setup
Start your trolling run at 2 mph (I find this is a good speed to make the boards plane straight out to the side of the boat). Put your shallow baits out first with the longest lead out behind the board. Put the rod in a holder in a near vertical position as possible to keep the line off the water. Put the second line out with a deeper presentation and less line out (see image for example).  I like to use 8 ft extra fast action G•Loomis WTR941 rods for planer boards because they take the pounding of waves, get the line up off the water and have a solid backbone which keeps the boards running smooth without any surges or racing. Also a level wind counter reel helps determine the amount of line being used and puts the bait at exactly the same distance and depth every time. Page 3 >