What would be the best way to get the herring more than 10 feet below the surface? We wanted to troll with the whole thing but it stayed too close to the surface. No we didn't weight it, whats the best way so that it will still look presentable.

Fill up his mouth with lead

Try one of these with arounf 4' og florocarbon between it and a 6.0 circle up thru the lip. Go slow bumping it in and out of gear...
http://stores.tmancustomtackle.com/catalog/keel.jpg

trolling drail....

Some of the charter captains in the area troll live baitfish with leadcore trolling outfits. 10 feet down, would not require alot of line out, wonder if that would spook the fish? Have you tried floating them under a balloon, or do you want to cover a lot of water?

Downrigger with a flourocarbon leader, the absolute best way to present live or dead bait at depth in a trolling manner! :)

I prefer to keep moving. I seem to have better luck when I bring bait to the fish instead of waiting for them to come to me.

Thanks for the help.

Simple iis best. Use a sliding egg or bullet weight in front of a BALL BEARING swivel and a leader length and type suitable for the situation.

I hope to explore the live bait downrigger option this fall with more gusto...That has got to be effective. And what I like most about it is you really have no weights or junk...it snaps free of the unit when a fish strikes allowing for lighter tackle to be fished.


With spin casting I have used something called a no snag sinker that is attached with 10# test line (incase it snags)

for conventional rigs I tend to 3-way...this is my go to rig...old fashion I know but I feel comfortable with it.

Lots of guys here use the egg or the "ball and chain" approach but I don't like the egg sliding on my baid...I think with heavy mono you are ok with an egg sinker.

I have a spot here in LIS that we drift live baits over. At starts at the top of a kelp covered reef in 16 feet of water and drops slowly to 30 feet. Some days a 3 way and others I just liveline during the drift. Livelining seems to work better on slower tides (the shad or porgie swim down). On faster tides or windy days a livelined fish stays on top. We've caught a bunch of fish in the mid 40s (inches) doing this. I may have to try this trolling thing. I like the sound of the simple egg sinker.

Do you troll with, against or across the tide? And about what speed?

Always try to troll with the tide at about 1 kt through the water collum. Picked up some three ways and going to try it out later.

It worked. Caught the biggest bluefish I'd ever seen :D.
Thanks for the help.