B-Faithful
Well-known member
For you non-great lake or chesapeake bay fisherman who ask what planerboards are when we post about them, I took a few photos of mine running for you to see and understand what we are doing better...
The purpose of pulling planer boards for fish like striped bass is that the baits are being pulling in clean undistrubed water away from the boat. (Stripers are fish that are spooked by boat noise) They also allow you to fish the baits closer to the surface as well as pull more lines.
Here on the Chesapeake we can get a good chop on the water and pull larger baits to mimic big bunker. Therefore we have to pull big 3 board planers so that the boards dont flip in rough water and they pull hard enough so that the clip will release the fishing line when struck by a fish. (weaker pulling boards will pull back with the fish). I run 100' of line to the planer board off of each side and tend to pull 3 to 5 baits off of each side. The line pulling the boards is .095 round weed wacker line. We let the bait out a certain length then hook it to a clip that we allow to slide down the planer line and away from the boat. I carry like 40 clips so that when a fish strikes I dont have to pull the clip back in but rather just collect the clips at the end of the day when I retrieve the planer board.
The "clips" I use are poor man's clips. I just use caribeener clips with a rubber band. When a fish strikes, it breaks the rubber band. Scotty does make some nice planer board clips that hold like and outrigger clip but they are a little pricey for carrying a bunch and I like the fact that the rubber band stretches some allowing the baits to swim better.
Here are some shots of the boards running in glassy water with only 3 lines being run to them. (the shots of the clips were taken by a friend off of his boat - as you can see he had a crazy good day)
The purpose of pulling planer boards for fish like striped bass is that the baits are being pulling in clean undistrubed water away from the boat. (Stripers are fish that are spooked by boat noise) They also allow you to fish the baits closer to the surface as well as pull more lines.
Here on the Chesapeake we can get a good chop on the water and pull larger baits to mimic big bunker. Therefore we have to pull big 3 board planers so that the boards dont flip in rough water and they pull hard enough so that the clip will release the fishing line when struck by a fish. (weaker pulling boards will pull back with the fish). I run 100' of line to the planer board off of each side and tend to pull 3 to 5 baits off of each side. The line pulling the boards is .095 round weed wacker line. We let the bait out a certain length then hook it to a clip that we allow to slide down the planer line and away from the boat. I carry like 40 clips so that when a fish strikes I dont have to pull the clip back in but rather just collect the clips at the end of the day when I retrieve the planer board.
The "clips" I use are poor man's clips. I just use caribeener clips with a rubber band. When a fish strikes, it breaks the rubber band. Scotty does make some nice planer board clips that hold like and outrigger clip but they are a little pricey for carrying a bunch and I like the fact that the rubber band stretches some allowing the baits to swim better.
Here are some shots of the boards running in glassy water with only 3 lines being run to them. (the shots of the clips were taken by a friend off of his boat - as you can see he had a crazy good day)