Trolling is the preferent angling method for those targeting striped bass (a.k.a. rockfish) for the duration of the spring and fall seasons on the Chesapeake Bay. The two primary areas that are the focus of this article are the commended tackle and proficiencies required to catch rockfish.

TACKLE: Over the years we have experimented with a great deal of dissimilar setups a good deal of that worked well and a good deal of that didn’t. Below are my recommendations as to what works best.

RODS: For your planer board rods I commend a 6 to 6 ½ foot 30 to 50 pound class rod. The rods need to have a gimbal and a solid set of guides. Stay away from guides with ceramic inserts. Roller guides are not required and a likely sign that you over spent. We use offshore angler’s power sticks which are available from bass pro shops and must last a lifetime. Cost is around $90 per rod. All of the required characteristics for your boat rods are the same except I commend a 40 to 60 pound class rod because your boat rods are going to quintessentially be employed to troll comparatively heavier baits including in line sinkers.

REELS: For your planer board reels I commend Shimano Tekoda 700′s and for the boat reels I commend Shimano Tekoda 800′s. When you get the reels you will want to adjust the reel handles out 1 place to the furthermost position as this will give the angler more leverage on the fish when cranking the handle.

LINE: For your planer board reels I commend 50 pound test mono either clear or dark green camouflage. I tend to stay away from the high visibility lines when fishing the Chesapeake Bay. I also quintessentially do not put braided line on my board reels because braided line has a higher propensity to slip out of the scotty clip. If you prefer to use braided line on your planer board reels, and some folks do, then I commend at least 80 pound test to assure the line does not inadvertently slip out of the clip. For the boat reels I commend 65 pound test moss green power pro. I likewise have no problem spooling a couple of the reels up with monel wire. I grew up using wire and we still catch a great deal of rockfish on wire line each season. As for your leaders I commend 60 pound test fluorocarbon but given the cost any clear or low visibility monofilament will suffice.

LURES: We use for the most part chartreuse and white tandem rigs with parachutes affixed. We likewise use umbrella rigs. Our tandems are quintessentially 2 to 4, 4 to 6 and 6 to 8 ounce combos with 9 inch shads attached. We specifically use merchandise formulated by local outfitters. For more selective information as to the specific companies and brands we use please contact me thru email at the email address given beneath and I will provide you assorted folks who may meet your needs. I will have to point out that we do adjust our trailing baits rather often and have found that green and chartreuse tomic plugs, made in France, work very well. Also don’t be scared to use a crippled alewive or tony accetta spoon either.

THE SPREAD: We run 21 lines from a 35 foot Carolina Classic express sportfisherman with a 14 foot beam. I know a good deal of a charter captains who run some more lines than that. My doctrine is simple. Troll as some lines as you’re comfortable with. Mitigating components will have to include the number of accessible rod holders you have, your vessel’s beam width, and your crew’s experience level. The last thing you want to do is compete versus a charter boat. Most charter boats run 2 trips a day and deploy as a good deal of rods as possible because it mainly increments the odds that they may return to the dock with happy clients in time to pick up their next party. Your typical fisherman that is out there for the love of the sport shouldn’t need a 140 feet span of planer line and 30 rods deployed to catch rockfish.

PLANER BOARD MATH: At the onset of your fishing day you need to stagger your distances and weights as you need to find where in the water column the rockfish are feeding and adjust your trolling depths appropriately. Be careful not to put your heaviest lures to the far outside position on your planer boards because this increments the likelihood of a tangle when the bait is struck. We distinctively work lightest to heaviest without substantial weight variation on our board lines. I would not commend deploying to the planer lines any tandem with a combined weight in excess of 14 ounces. We commend you leave the deeper running heavier rigs for the boat rods not the planer boards. When deploying your planer rods be sure to adjust the bait’s distance behind the boat appropriately remembering that the furthermost bait out if struck and pulled from your clip will drop the furthermost distance behind the boat. For instance, if your planer board is tracking 100 feet a beam of your vessel and you drop a bait back 120 feet and then run it all the way out to the planer board when struck you will have the fish 220 feet behind the boat. Why is this necessary to note? Because you must be careful to adjust each further and added line you put out on your planer board line to make sure suitable separation. If you fail to do so you’ll spend more time sorting through tangles than fishing. For instance, given the example above you would not want to put the next bait 140 feet behind the boat and send it to a position 80 feet a beam of your vessel because if both baits get struck at the same time the 2 fish will be right on top of one another precisely 220 feet behind your boat. At that point the only distance separating the 2 fish and the 220 feet line spans is the horizontal distance amongst the respective rod holders.

BOAT HANDLING: At the onset of your fishing day we commend a trolling speed amongst 3 and 3.5 knots speed over ground. For a good deal of inboard vessels this means you may need to have a trolling valve installed. As a short solution you may use a sea anchor to slow your speed but this is not a good permanent solution and represents another potential obstacle anglers will have to keep away from when landing a fish. You want to remunerate peculiar attention to your trolling speed and note at which speeds your having more success. On a slow day don’t hesitate to adjust your speeds. Our basic principle is the colder the water temperature the slower we troll. In the winter months we’ve trolled as slow as 2 knots and caught fish.

FINDING FISH: Work the channel edges in a zig zag pattern from one side of the channel to the other until you locate the fish. Depths from 35 to 80 feet are most appropriate. We many times drop our boat rods back a little further when we are in the middle of the channel and adjust them appropriately as we reach the channel edge. Your in truth not looking for fish but rather bait as where there is bait there is bound to be fish. Pay attention to diving birds and big schools of menhaden you might see on your sounder. Mark the more prominent schools and don’t be afraid to circle back over those marks repeatedly from multiple directions.

KNOW THE TIDES: If readers take one thing away from this article it will have to be the importance of knowing your tide information. Always have a tide chart on your boat and be sure to make note of the high, low and slack tide times for your area before departing the dock. Rockfish always bite best on an ebb or flood tide and are much less likely to bite on a slack tide. If you don’t have a full day to put into your fishing venture make sure you plan your departure time to keep away from fishing in slack tide conditions.

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