Side Planer use from shore

[OldTimer]

Well my new side planers arrived so off I went for some R&D this morning.

Didn’t really expect to catch anything with the flow at 145 m3/sec, but I wanted to get some practice in using this thing for when it gets a bit more calm.

Water was like chocolate milk upon arriving at the river.

I rigged up using a 15# red mono main line with a 4 foot long 10# leader past the board to the lure.

   

Rod chosen was my 9’ med/heavy action catfish/surf rod. Cardinal 6X reel.

I brought a bunch of different lures to try – more on this later.

Water where I was testing was about 2' (near shore) and maybe 5 feet deep max in the area covered.

I had read up a bit on this before coming out, so the learning curve wasn’t all that bad and I got the hang of it fairly quickly. I started with a 2” Hot-N-Tot. (a floating deep diving crankbait)

You do need a bit of current at your feet to start – to get it pulling out the rig.

Forget casting this rig………. I tried it a few different ways……. This is heartily not recommended.

You drop the lure in then lower the planer in and strip off some line then clamp it or check the spool………. The planer moves out…………..more slack and it drops back a bit……….clamp………..out it goes some more……….repeat….…repeat……..repeat..etc.

Eventually you will find the terminal distance point where you don’t get any more distance out, just fall back. Here’s a shot of the max distance I got with the current today – it was about 40 to 50 yards out from shore at about the 7 o’clock position (12 o’clock being straight upstream).

   

The lures used (the ones that worked well) generally were about 2 feet under the surface. I had the leader snubbed up – if I had rigged with the optional extra line - say at 15 feet - I’m sure I could have achieved at least 6 to7 feet down. And with more length=more down - dependant on the lure.

I could feel the lures wiggling in my hand holding the rod.

It gets better - Now - if you reel VERY slowly the planer will come forward a bit but not lose as much distance out… the increased velocity caused by reeling aids distance out ……… stop reeling for a bit and it drops back a bit………..reel a few feet in and it moves forward………..stop, it drops back……….repeat till it’s at your feet.

At this point you can just repeat the whole loop............

Slowly sweeping the rod tip upstream can also be used to get a slight temporary sideways movement -outbound.

I’ve marked up this picture – the turquoise lines represent two possible paths going out to max distance, the yellow line represents one possible path coming back. The combinations are endless. But you can see how much water was covered. More water could be covered by simply walking up or down the bank.

   

I did try the smaller outrigger blade – but the larger one worked fine in the current today – so I would imagine it’s the one most people will use unless the current is like high time at the Niagara Whirlpool.

I brought the heavier 9’ rod as it was recommended……… they were right - a light 9’ rainbow would have been too deeply arched………… a heavy 7’ would not have allowed me to get the run out line completely off the water’s surface (this really helps max distance).

Today (of lures tested) the mid-size floating mid to deep diving cranks worked best. (Hot-N-Tot, Tadpolly, Lazy Ike, Rebel Crawfish)

The small “Hot Shot” that the planer was designed to work with failed - as it didn’t like today’s fast current and flipped over then skimmed upside down on the surface no matter how I tuned it. On a calmer day it may have been fine.

Sinking Canadian wiggler styles, jigs, Rapala minnow type, swim baits on a jig head, flatfish, spin-n’glows were all big time fails – either snagging up, or skimming the surface.

   

I would imagine that heavy spoons and thin blade spinners would fail (snags).

Small spoon and big blade spinners might work (to test another day).

Medium weight bait would work. Perhaps sort of a modified drop shot rig (weight on bottom with a short leader)

I’d guess that spawn bags would just skiff along the surface.

I also noticed that you will achieve greater distance using lures that have less “drag”…….. for instance the 2” Hot-n-Tot went out further than the 2.5” one.

Using these on Kayak might be handy too - by making 2 lines a tad simpler if fishing out on Lake Ontario. Use one flat line and 1 planer.

This technique would be AWESOME on a medium size river when trying to fish tight along the facing edge of a log jam situated on a far bank outside bend thalweg set up.

All in all – I enjoyed today – for sure I learned a lot – and I do plan (and look forward to) the use of this technique a bit on each of my open river outings as time goes forward until ice up.

By the way I did get a strike on the Crawfish………….. a smallmouth………a quick bang …. I saw it jump once…….. and it was gone…………


Some more useful links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRDQHbxFzh0

http://www.sportfishingbc.com/articles/t...otshot.htm

http://www.questoutdoors.net/skills/cast...an/sp.html

http://www.letscatchfish.net/pdf/luhr-je...Planer.pdf


  02HotShotSidePlaner.pdf (Size: 197.53 KB / Downloads: 12)


Hope that helps someone…………………..

Cheers,

OldTimer

[MichaelAngelo]

Nice write up there OT! I'm waiting for the bank shot of your side planar board resting next to a steelie .

[zippyFX]

Last week we were trolling with scatter raps. The guide said they seemed to be good for trolling.

[OldTimer]

(10-27-2013 08:13 PM)MichaelAngelo Wrote:  Nice write up there OT! I'm waiting for the bank shot of your side planar board resting next to a steelie .

Time to give this another shot........................... I hear the audience has arrived.

Cheers,

OldTimer

[Glacier2014]

This is brilliant. Definitely gonna give it a try.

[gr8tfish]

Funny...I bought a mini side planner just for this, glad someone else posted this. Great idea.