Gunner Quinn
My dad was never a fisherman. He’d dabbled in it here and there, but he grew up as a city boy, and fishing was never something he was passionate about or bothered to get good at. He was a good dad, so he’d begrudgingly take me out on the water when I became a fishing-obsessed youngster. However, his lack of angling skill meant we’d only ever fish with one method—trolling—and I hated it.
For hours, we’d drive slowly around the lake in a circle, towing lures and baits behind the boat. It was a mind-numbingly slow type of angling with little to no action that made fishing feel about as entertaining as being stuck in traffic or watching paint dry.
As I grew older and started going fishing on my own, I discovered more entertaining and productive ways to fish, and eventually, trolling fell to the wayside as something I would only do as a last resort. However, over the years, I’ve met many anglers who still believe that trolling is one of the most exciting and productive fishing methods on the planet, causing me to question either their sanity or my own biased opinion of the technique.
This has led me to ask a very pertinent question: Is trolling a legitimate fishing method or just a way to spend a lazy day on the water and catch a few fish?
The Basic Angler
The idea behind trolling is fairly simple. You head out onto the water in a boat of some sort, drop bait or lures into the water, and then tow them behind you as you motor or paddle around the water until a fish strikes. Admittedly, it’s a great way to cover water and explore a lake, river, or reservoir you’ve never fished before, but trolling just seems to lack the direct interaction with the fish that other techniques like casting with lures or fly fishing require. Instead of actively seeking fish out and tempting them into striking with finesse and skill, trolling seems like it depends entirely on happenstance and little on an angler’s fishing expertise.
“I think people like to troll because it doesn’t require a lot of competence to do,” says Montana fishing guide James Mugele. “It’s one of those games where so long as you can get the basics right, like choosing the right bait for the species you’re after and driving the boat slowly, you can catch fish. Most people I know consider it a fun way to spend a day out on the water when they don’t want to think too hard. They troll around and drink the beer until they make enough space in the cooler so they can put a few fish in it. While there’s nothing wrong with that, there’s nothing about trolling that’s ever made me think of it on the same level as fly fishing for trout or even casting with lures for bass.”
The simplicity of trolling is why so many anglers seem to look down on it. It’s an every-person’s type of fishing, similar to fishing with bait in stocked ponds or soaking worms under a bobber for panfish. Trolling is a technique where you can have your good days on the water as well as bad, and it just seems like there’s little you can do to change the outcome—unless, of course, you know how to troll with purpose.
Refined and Redefined
While trolling is a classical, old-world sort of fishing method, it’s currently undergoing a renaissance. Thanks to modern technology and innovative anglers using it properly, trolling has evolved and is no longer just a way to catch a few fish while you drive around the lake, but a specialized and absolutely deadly fishing technique.
“I think trolling gets a bad rap and that’s definitely the wrong way to think of it,” says Minnesota fishing guide and tournament angler Wil Neururer. “People look at trolling like it’s just a great way to float around and drink beer, but when you’re doing it right, there’s no better way to target species like walleye, lake trout, and even crappie, especially when they’re suspended in deep water.”
Neururer and other anglers use electronics to find large schools of suspended fish in deep water or along large flats without a lot of specific structure to cause fish to gather, and then they troll through them. It’s a fantastic method for locking onto and staying with schools of roving gamefish, and Neururer finds the simplicity of the technique great for helping his inexperienced clients become better anglers.
“I can’t rely on groups of novice anglers to be good at the real technical things,” Neururer told MeatEater. “I mean, we live in an age where technology like transducers and LiveScope can tell us exactly where fish are sitting so we can drop a jig in a foot of their nose. But if we don’t have the people in the boat with the skill to do that sort of thing, you have to find different ways to catch fish, and nothing is easier to get the hang of than trolling. I tow a ton of crawler harnesses to combat people’s lack of precision casting and fishing skills and take the accuracy of their cast completely out of the equation by just putting the boat over the fish and waiting for the rods to bend so my clients can reel them in.”
While many anglers believe trolling is a simple, slapdash technique, Neururer believes that when you combine it with the right technology and method, it becomes an incredibly technical and effective way to fish.
“I spend all summer trying to perfect trolling techniques,” Neururer said. “It’s not just about simply towing lures behind the boat, but a game of angles and precision. I pull up onto big flats and use side-imaging technology to look for either twenty fish over 100 yards or three or four tight schools of fish over 100 yards. I troll spinner rigs or crankbaits and maintain my speed, and as soon as I get contact and see those fish, I’ll turn 90 degrees to get on top of them. It’s the kind of thing where I’ll catch twelve or thirteen fish trolling this way when other guys trolling haphazardly will only catch two or three. It’s actually kind of amazing because when you get the angles right trolling, it becomes a very technical and skillful game that really puts the smack down on the fish.”
Getting Trolled
Almost every angler is guilty, at least a little bit, of being biased towards certain fish species or fishing techniques. We think of certain fish species as “trash fish” or dislike certain lures or fishing techniques we consider too hard, too easy, or just not what we like to do. It can be very limiting because when we discard fish or fishing methods that we don’t like or blindly cling to beliefs about fishing that were told to us (or come from one or two bad experiences), we’re missing out on some great fish-catching opportunities.
No matter how you feel about trolling, whether you find it to be boring or exciting, ineffective or productive, the fact is that it’s all in the eyes of the beholder. My dad may not have been a fisherman, but he knew that trolling was a way to catch fish. And while those long days of drifting around in circles in the boat may not have been incredibly productive fish-wise, they were still rewarding. They were days spent on the water that got me more interested in fishing and caused me to explore more of the angling world, and that is never a bad thing.
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