Michigan Muskie Alliance

You know on those nature programs on TV when there are two animals going at, and a third (opportunistic, and likely weaker animal) who has absolutely nothing to do with the situation, joins in???

Chasin50 wrote:You know on those nature programs on TV when there are two animals going at, and a third (opportunistic, and likely weaker animal) who has absolutely nothing to do with the situation, joins in???

Perhaps the wise old one simply lets the two wear themselves out, then moves in to assert his dominance...

Depending on size /drag of the board if you have front rails on your boat
(or something similar) you can mount your line reels on the rails..
(I had a mast but never mounted it as reels on the rails worked Ok..at least for the limited planar board fishing I do.. ) You also can get lures off to the side using a 'dipsy diver' of course ..or tweaking the lip/eyelet..(As I recall Indiana State record musky was caught using dipsy diver ).

( We used to have planar boards at banquet auction..not sure we have any this year tho)

I can't believe how many answers this post has raised, though not all are aimed at the original question. I sold my old riggers to get Cannons and now wish i had kept them for the spools and arms. They would have been great to use for boards. Mike/Michelle use a simple set up for their jon boat. I do not know if the same is used on the Starcraft. Alot of products out there to choose from. I wonder by using sppols w/o a mast how far away the boards could get from the boat, line dragging in the water stc. Any distance is better than none with my noisy Honda...

I would first try it w/o mast..lines will drag in water to some extent if waves present ..so pre-release can be an issue depending on releases used..but for big lures/musky you'll presumably need tight release in any case..

I had a mast as noted..but find reels mounted on rails owrk OK..for me at least so I sold my mast (and bought a nice st Croix rod with the $$ ) . Can always buy the mast later if rail set up doesnt work for you..

I' ll put my trolling board abilities with offshores against anybody with board and do well for muskies.you just have to spend time with them.I just couldn't take it any more when I saw this post.

Ha H ahA HA HHAA AH YOU FUNNY. Gabe cant use off shores and get as wide as I can. Guys dont waste your money on expensive reels with brakes and such. If you already have reels thats cool. If not all you need is a pair of removable masts. Mine on(both boats) are the same masts. I have 6" pursuit tracks up next to the wind shield on the starcraft and on the front casting deck in the little Jon. My masts cost me 10 bucks each. I have a rail mount attached to a flat piece of aluminum that slides into the tracks just like the pursuit stuff. I inserted a 3 foot piece of stainless tube into the rail mount and tighten the two allenhead set screws. I drilled the tube out for two 1/4 inch eye bolts. I wind the 75 feet of 600 lb weedwacker line .080 around the eyebolts like an old ice fishing pole. one end is attached to the top eye bolt the other to the eye bolt on the board. Works like 10. I hand over hand them in faster then a reel can do it. The best thing about side masts is you can turn hard without getting board lines coming into the boat. The smaller offshore type just dont get wide enough for me and I also hate having something heavy attached to my line inbetween me and my fish. I dont use dipsey divers for the same reason. Instead of dipseys I use my boards. Kingfisher

I have seen his setup and it is very simple and inexpensive. Hey, wait,...that's not Mike......inexpensive???? someone is posing as Kingfisher.

Well mike I only fish with three people in my boat at most and it works great for me. and thats 6 rods I could see if your useing eight or more rods or 13inch grandmas.

The kicker is I can run two lures on one rod by adding a 20 to 30 foot slider that runs halfway out to the boards. I can run two 9 inch grannies on one rod. In Canadian waters where we only have one rod each the Sliders help out a lot. Mike