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This article is intended as a primer to fishing big planer boards. While the article is specifically aimed at the shallow waters of the Western Lake Erie and the fabulous walleye fishery there, most of the concepts can be applied to other waters and species. Anglers who have not used this method or anglers that may have tried it and had problems should find it useful.
What are planer boards?
Planer boards or trolling boards are a method of getting trolled baits away from the back of the boat and off to the sides. There are two basic types of boards. The first type are generally referred to as Inline Boards. They attach to the fishing line between the rod tip and the bait. The second type of boards are often referred to Big Boards. These are towed by the boat and fishing lines are attached to the tow line by a release device. Both are considered stealth presentations. A versatile angler would be wise to consider both approaches depending on the situation. There is overlap in application of these devices, but big boards are what will be discussed in this article.
Why use big boards?
There are several reasons to employ big boards for fishing the shallow waters of Western Lake Erie for Walleyes. Probably the best reason for choosing big boards is that fish can be played unencumbered by extra tackle between the angler and the fish, since the fishing line is released from the tow line.
Most anglers agree that many fish will spook from an oncoming boat in shallow water. These fish are thought to move off to the sides of the path of the boat. Lures trolled behind boards end up passing directly through these pods of fish increasing the likelihood of strikes.
Fishing planer boards allows anglers to get more lines in the water. With big boards run off to the sides of the boat 80 or 100 feet and releases spaced every 10 or 15 feet on the tow line, anglers can easily run 4, 5 or even 6 lines per side without tangles. This approach also covers a wide swath of water.
Finally, big boards are easier for other boaters to see than the inline variety, especially if you have bright colored flags on your boards. This can save major headaches on the water when fishing in the pack..
Briefly, inline boards have a couple advantages. If you’re fishing solo or with one other angler, it is simpler to run inline boards. Also, when working a small pod of fish on a breezy day on a downwind troll, it is easier to pull and redeploy a small spread of inline boards to run back upwind and set up another pass.
Boat Equipment and Setup
Equipment needed to efficiently employ big boards is pretty basic. Specific manufacturers of the equipment discussed will not be mentioned because I don’t want inadvertently miss any. First you need a set of boards. These can be either purchased or home made. Plans for making a set of boards can be easily found on the Internet. You also need some method of deploying and recovering your boards. Ready-made commercial mast assemblies which consist of a mast, planer reels, pulleys, and tow line are a good solution for those with open boats. Bigger boats with T-tops or hard tops generally do not use a mast. These style boats present many mounting options for your planer reels and pulleys, including mounting to the supports of the top and rail mounts. The pulleys are used to move the tow point to a higher/further forward position. These items are commercially available as well.
You will also need releases, lots of releases. Two guys fishing a small boat should have at least a dozen. I regularly use over 50 and it is not unheard of to use many more. If you run out of releases you must reel in your boards to recover them. Then re-deploy the boards and re-use your releases. So the more releases you have, the more time you spend fishing. There is also a product available now that catches releases in the event your tow line should ever break.
When setting up your boat, keep the following general principals in mind. Big boards exert a lot of force. Use backing plates or big fender washers and thru bolt the hardware if you are mounting a mast to your boat. Board snubbers are available to help absorb the shock of wave action that would otherwise be transmitted to your mast or mounting hardware.
There are two basic things you deal with when fishing big boards. First you deploy & retrieve your boards using the planer board reels. Second, you will be attaching line releases to the tow line. If you are fishing from a boat with a cockpit, it’s real nice not to have to leave the cockpit to do these operations. In general, you want your tow point (top of the mast or pulley location) to be as high and far forward as possible and still be able to reach the tow line to attach your releases.. Your planer board reels should be mounted about waist to shoulder high to allow for easy operation with chest high probably being ideal.
Rods, Rod Holders, Reels, and Line
You can really maximize your efficiency by using matching rods. This allows subtle variations in the rod tip action to be easily detected. These variations can be caused by something fouling the lure such as a weed the size of a blade of grass. They can also be caused by small fish of the “by-catch” variety (either spike walleye or “junk” fish) that are hooked, but just swimming along with the boat. The advantages of matched rods really become apparent as you start running 3 or more rods on one side of the boat. Suitable rods generally run 6 to 7 feet with a medium or medium light action.
Using matching rods doesn’t do any good unless they are placed in holders in such a way as to allow easy comparisons. Typically, rod holders are placed along the gunwale and spaced closely together, with just enough room for the reels. The holders are adjusted to be vertical or angled slightly away from the boat and parallel to each other, see Figure 1.
 Figure 1. Rod holder orientation, the bow of the boat is to the right. The far right rod’s lure is closest to the board and the left most rod’s lure is closest to the boat.
Monofilament line in 10 or 12 pound test is adequate. This also corresponds with the data available in the following books, Precision Trolling now in its 8th edition and Precision Trolling Big Water Edition. See http://www.precisionangling.com/ for more information. These books are invaluable on the water and can really help get your program dialed into the fish quickly.
Bread & Butter Baits
There are two types of baits generally used off big boards…crankbaits and spoons. That’s not to say other types won’t work, they’re just not used as much. Any of your favorite walleye crankbaits can be used. To rig up for crankbaits, I thread a small bead onto the main monofilament line then tie a small barrel swivel. The bead should be large enough to prevent the swivel from entering the tip top of the rod. To the other end of the barrel swivel, I tie a 4 or 5 foot fluorocarbon leader either the same test as my main line or 2 lbs lighter. Rod length and your boat configuration will dictate leader length, be sure you can easily get fish to the net. I terminate the leader with a small snap. The advantage of this setup is that small bits of weeds sliding down the line will usually be deflected by the bead and not foul the bait resulting in less time trolling fouled baits.
 Figure 2. Mini-diver, spoons and leader arrangement. The main line to the rod is gold and to the right of the diver. The leader is on the left of the diver and you can see the small snap that terminates the leader attached to the spoon on the left just below.
Tactics
Enough of the gear and theory lets go catch some fish. Use your electronics to locate fish before deploying your spread. I like to back-reel the boards out slowly, some prefer to let the boards out using the clutch mechanism of the planer reel. You want them out far enough to allow spacing your releases 10 or 15 feet apart plus some extra to get the whole spread further from the boat. Some guys run them a little closer; others spread them out even further. If you space them too closely, you can run into tangles. So if you’re running 4 per side you want them out about 50 feet plus at least another 20 feet. You can run your boards out 100 feet or more if you want. Reference the Precision Trolling books to enable you to target depths where your electronics confirm concentrations of fish. I usually start trolling at 2.1 knots on the GPS and troll in ‘S’ curves to find out what kind of speed the fish are looking for.
n order to take advantage of your matching rod setup, you should run the same baits in the same size on a given side of the boat. The amount of line you let out to achieve the desired depth should also be the same for each rig on a given side of the boat. This allows you to take advantage of reading the matching rods and minimizes tangles. If you’re running crankbaits, be sure your lures are “tuned” to run straight behind the boat. If you’re running the mini-diver and spoon program, check that your mini-divers are centered on a zero setting and tighten the screw if needed.
Now set your first bait into the water alongside the boat. Confirm it is running true, not skewing off to one side or the other. Zero your line counter if needed. Allow the bait to free spool line off the reel against the clicker to avoid a bird’s nest. When the desired amount of line is out, attach a release to the mono at the tip of the rod. Insert the rod into the rod holder furthest forward along the gunwale. Now hook the release onto the tow line. The pull of the bait will start the release down the towline towards the board. When the line gets a few feet from the board, engage the reel. Lastly, double check the drag adjustment. Perform the preceding steps with your second rod and use the rod holder second from the front. Engage the reel when the release from this rod is about 10 to 12 feet or so up the tow line from the first one. Continue until you have deployed all the rods for this side of the boat, keeping your release spacing about equal on the tow line. Now go deploy the rods for the other side of the boat the same way or you can have someone else deploy that side while you do yours.
 Figure 3. Release spacing on the towline. Here you can just make out the releases (orange) along the tow line.
Fish On!
When you hook up a decent size fish, it will pull the mono from the release. Try to get to the rod quickly and pick up any slack. Then pause to allow the fish to swing into the area directly behind the boat and away from other tackle. Now just play the fish to the back of the boat and land it. It is extremely rare for fish to get into other lines when using big boards.
Let’s say that a fish just came on the second rod from the board (2nd rod holder from the bow) and you had 4 rods set on each side of the boat. What we’re looking at now is rods in holders 1, 3 and 4 and a gap in our release spacing on the tow line where a release is now hanging unused. Now what happens? Well, the release stays where it is. To reset everything, first move the rod in the third rod holder forward to the second rod holder and then move the rod from the fourth rod holder to the third. Let a little line off each of the reels to re-establish your release spacing on the tow line. Now just re-deploy the rod you landed the fish on and use the 4th rod holder.
Smaller fish will often not be able to pull the line free of the release. This is okay, because you want the release to set the hook and if the release is set too light, you’ll lose a lot of fish because the hooks weren’t firmly set. Smaller fish can be detected by a rod tip out of line with the others or a bigger V in the tow line. When you suspect a small fish, remove the rod from the holder and lift the line over the other rod tips. Pick up any slack and use a sidearm motion with a quick snapping action to pop the mono free of the release. Keeping tension on all the time, allow the rig to drift back clear of the other lines and retrieve it to the boat. Often small white perch, silver bass, or small walleye will be present. Other times, you may just come up with some weeds.
Bonus rods for bigger crowds
If you have enough anglers on board to max out your planer rods there are a couple ways to add even more rods into the spread without interfering with your spread planer rods. Due to the lack of bottom features in the western end of the lake, it’s pretty easy to run a downrigger or two positioned a couple feet off bottom. Try an 8 or 10 foot lead off the ball with a big spoon (regular salmon size). Often, walleye will lay right on the bottom inactive. Sometimes this presentation will trigger these fish and this will often take the biggest fish of the day. You can also run Dipsy Divers set to run just outside the riggers and inside the planer spread. Spoons or crankbaits are good bets for these rods.
Final Thoughts
A good helmsman is a necessity for this type of fishing and an autopilot is always desirable for trolling. Do not turn so sharply as to allow the board on the inside of the turn to stall, especially if you’re using baits that sink, like spoons. The baits will end up on the bottom and likely pick up zebra mussels. Be careful if you have a light boat that is easily deflected by wind or wave action. A moment of inattention could have the boat running over your own spread. If you’re catching a lot of white perch or silver bass mixed in with walleyes, consider a couple changes. Increasing speed or increasing the size of your baits will often reduce the by-catch.
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