Lake trout and salmon are suckers for bling. Put something flashy in the water like a highly polished metal dodger or a brightly colored plastic rotator and they’ll swim a half mile out of their way to check out the bright, shiny objects. Then (hopefully) they’ll snarf the fly, Spin N Glow, spoon or whatever other bait or lure is trailing just behind the bling and “fish-on!”
When I saw the Sebago Trolling Rig from Al’s Goldfish Lure Company, I thought, “Wow, that’s some bling!” The blades on these come in polished 22K gold plating or in mirror-finished nickel.
Rotating spinner blades have been attracting fish and duping them into frying pans for centuries. Sometime in fishing history, inventive anglers produced ganged strings of spinners, apparently thinking, if one spinner looks like one baitfish, perhaps a string of spinners would mimic a school of baitfish. Lake trolls were invented and have been attracting salmon and trout long before the first metal or plastic flashers were available.
For the most part, lake trolls have never gained a following in the Great Lakes. I’ve played with them over the years, but metal dodgers and plastic flashers are my go to presentations when I use an attractor. Do I really need to start trolling with lake trolls? The Sebago Trolling Rig convinced me to give lake trolls another try. The immediate initial success I had with them convinced me to use them over and again. I’ve ran them with Spin N Glows, spoons, Yakima SpinFish, Freedom Tackle cut-bait plugs and herring strips on meatheads.
The Sebago Trolling Rigs have three spinner blades, medium and medium large Colorado blades and a large willow leaf style blade at the front. The total length is 25 inches.
I’m not saying these rigs are going to retire my dodgers and flashers, but they’ve become a welcome addition to my game plan. They are available in some retail outlets, at Amazon.com or order from the Al’s Goldfish Lure Company at www.alsgoldfish.com.
