While down-rod, live-bait tactics work all day and all night through the summer, many anglers who fish Hartwell’s main lake during the daylight hours prefer to troll and catch striped bass. Two schools of thought rule the daytime tactics: trolling crankbaits and jigs behind downrigger balls and trolling with lead-core line.
Downriggers work by suspending a heavy hydrodynamic ball from a boat’s stern. A heavy boom allows the ball and cable to hang free while the length of cable and depth of the ball are controlled by a metal spool equipped with a counter to give the angler precise control over the depth of the ball. The final piece is a sturdy line clip attached to the cable just above the ball. The release has rubber pads that hold the fishing line tight enough to troll the bait yet release when a fish takes the bait. This allows the angler direct access to the fish without having to hassle with the added weight of the ball.
Trolling with lead-core line requires a reel with a big-enough spool to accommodate several hundred feet of the heavy diameter line. Lead-core line is sold in different package weights, and the line is color coded every 10 feet so the angler can easily tell the amount of line out by counting colors.
Lead-core line is the least-expensive of the two trolling tactics. Spool at least 100 yards of lead-core line (10 colors) on a 30 series reel such as a Penn 330 or a Shakespeare Tidewater 30. Attach a 50-foot leader of 20-pound mono and experiment with which bait/color combinations work best. The trolling rule of thumb is to put out one color for each 3 ½ to 4 feet of depth needed at an average trolling speed of 2 to 2 1/2 miles per hour.
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