How And Why To Use Planer Boards For Trolling

For many anglers, trolling is a go to method of fishing. Whether you’re going after walleyes on sand bars, or chasing salmon and trout in the Great Lakes, it’s a great way to put a bunch of fish in the boat. However, once you get much beyond two lines in your boat, you run into a problem of where to actually put more lines. That’s where planer boards come into play.

Why To Use Planer Boards For Trolling

Let’s start with what planer boards actually are. These are devices that are typically made from plastic and foam. They clip onto your line and move your line and lure presentation out and away from the boat. So why use them?

The first reason why you’d want to use them is to expand your coverage area and give you the ability to fish more lines. Because they spread out your lines away from the boat, you make more room to put in more lines behind the boat. When you can do this, you have a better chance at catching more fish. (more lines = more fish, right?)

It’s not just about getting more lines in the water though. You can also use planer boards as a way to scout out different depths and figure out where the fish are. You can use them to put your lines into shallower water that you may not want your boat to go through, while also spreading some out into deeper water. Their ability to go out and fish in shallow water also gives you the ability to be more stealthy, letting you fish in areas that if you drove your boat over you’d scare the fish away.

How To Use Planer Boards

When you go to set up your planer board on your trolling rig, here’s some things to keep in mind:

• Set your line up like you normally would, and let your line out behind the boat. Typically you’ll want your farthest reaching boards to be let out the farthest before attaching the board.
• Once you’ve let your line out a ways, you’ll attach your planer board. There are all different kinds of systems for this, but in general you’ll have an area to attach the line in a secure way, and a place to run the line through that can release come unattached.
• Once attached, start to let your planer board out behind the boat. You can apply tension to the line right away to have it start pulling away from the boat until it reaches the distance out that you want.
• Repeat this for each planer board you want to have behind the boat.

After some time trolling, chances are you’re going to hook into a fish. When this happens, either the force from the fish striking will trigger the release, or you’ll have to pull on the line to pop it off the release. If you don’t do this, you’ll be fighting both the fish and the planer board, leading to lost fish (trust us).

If you have multiple boards out on each side of the boat, and your outside board gets a fish, it’s a good idea to either bring in the inside board to avoid tangles or try your best to guide your fish over the inside boards.