What is the best way to view trolling speed?

[Hunt4Ever]

I have a GPS and a speed sensor on my boat. Which one should I use as the standard?

What do you use?

[bluedevil]

Definatly your gps! If you get into some pretty good wind and waves you can really see the diference. Your speed sensor measures amount of water that passes by it, the gps measures the actuall speed on the surface. I allways go by my gps.

[Shoeman]

Not going against what BD just mentioned, but what's critical is lure speed.

If the water is already moving at 1 1/2 mph's do to wind and/or current and you're moving at 2mph according to the GPS, you may not get enough lure action to draw a strike.

Ideally running a probe which indicates lure speed would be the answer, but without, direction of your troll may have to be altered. In other words, fishing perpendicular to the wind. Keeping an eye on your rod tips will also give you a clue as to how fast you're trolling.

Use a combination of both and try to calculate the variables.

[scottyhoover]

Thanks for the info, i was wondering about this as well. My gps won't read until you are moving 2mph or more I think. So when I'm trying to go 1.5-1.9 for walleye I have to make an educated guess using both the speed sensor and the gps. ( I resort to hillbilly trolling, dragging a bucket, sometimes!)..... But I always feel that if the blades on the harnesses are turning, and the jointed rapalas are wiggling, then its fast enough :)

[Shoeman]

Us cold water trollers have discussed this for years. It's really critical when fishing let's say deeper than 30' down.
We experience sub-currents which can't be seen or measured without a probe. On a few occasions we would be trolling up to 4.5 mph's just to turn 2.2 at the baits.

In shallower water it's usually not as extreme, but on waters like Lake Erie currents play a daily role. You'll always here some guy on the radio making reference to "only catching fish going against or with the wind". Actually, he found the "proper speed". If one could duplicate that speed they could catch fish regardless of direction.

Hope this helped. :)

[bluedevil]

I agree with shoeman about the speed at the lure. I guess I just didn't think about that when I posted earlier. I do have to say there is one draw back to those probes and that is, there to damn expensive.:eek:

[Shoeman]

They are and probably overkill on shallow lakes.

Just vary your speed until something works. Then try to duplicate it.
It really gets complicated after a good blow. That's when a combination of instruments comes in very handy. One can really fine tune their speed by varying trolling direction.

Some days it really doesn't matter anyway. :D LOL

We've trolled hardware as fast as 3.2 just to keep the junkfish off our lines.

Good luck out there. :)

[fishwitch44]

shoeman:
in regards to your post about speed probes, i currently run a fish hawk 840 and when i do use it,(which isnt often) i seldom find to much of a difference from the gps speed and the probe speed..i fish lake huron usually 70 ft and deeper and was wondering if erie has that much more current?? i think the biggest difference i have seen is .2 which i guess does make a difernce on the lure action..

[Shoeman]

That's the unit I run.

I find that hard to believe. There are days when there's only a small difference, but I have found that usually it fluctuates quite a bit. It's more evident when changing trolling directions. There have been times, mostly after a blow that I can't go slow enough to maintain speed. (depending on direction).
Areas such as the reef up from Grindstone is a prime example. Lake currents ( thermals) are another prime example of a difference between top and bottom speed.

Although I have never fished it, Lake Ontario is notorious for current slicks up to 8mph. I had a friend that would fish out of Pt Breeze and he would describe how they had to tack those currents in order to fish them properly.

I wonder if your unit could use some fine tuning?

[east bay ed]

no matter what you use, fish hawk, king fisher, gps or paddle wheel the trick is being able to reproduce the same conditions after a hit. as long as you use one thing and stick to it you should be ok. i usually fish deeper then 30' feet deep most years on inland waters but i don't want to have to put the downriggers on with a probe down just to see how fast the lure is going. i would use the temp reading a lot more then the speed. but again it wouldn't be worth the hassle for me. not to mention the cost. a friend of mine bought his three years ago from me and lost two probes that same year. he doesn't use it as much any more.

[fishwitch44]

shoeman:
"FINE TUNING" is out of the question for me.lol.wife tells me everytime i try to fix something it cost 3 times more later to have somebody else do it right...:D :D :D guess i will have to stick with the way it is because i wouldnt know where to start tuning...lol...