The winter brown trout bite in the harbors has garnered a lot of popularity in recent years, but don’t sleep on the springtime bite shortly afterwards.
In this video, Nick Nault breaks down everything you need to know to take advantage of this incredible bite, trolling boards for super-sized brown trout out on the Great Lakes.
The key to finding these trout during spring on the Great Lakes is to find warm water.
Warm water is going to attract baitfish and in return the trout follow. Usually in spring the warmest water is going to be shallow. Today we are trolling in about six feet of water.
The gear for springtime browns is pretty simple. I like using trolling rods between seven and a half to eight foot long with line counter reels on them. I like my trolling rods about that length because they absorb head shakes well and keep the fish pinned. They are also designed for trolling and can handle the pull of a planer board on them.
The line counter reels are very important when it comes to trolling, because you are able to dial in the exact distance and depth your lure is running.
I will rig them with ten pound Suffix Advance mono.
The monofilament has enough stretch to keep these big browns on the line and in my experience it has worked better than braid in this shallow water.
One really important piece of equipment we are using today is Off-Shore planner boards. Using planner boards allows us to really spread our baits out and cover some ground.
When it comes to baits we use a lot of stick baits like the Rapala Original floaters and Storm Thunder sticks. These baits can be trolled in this shallow water and work great for these big browns.
