Trolling for MACs

[lifeshort]

I use the same reels and line for macs that I use for Kokanee. Abu Garcia 5500C3 loaded with 12 pound test mono. I have only had to chase macs with the boat for fear of being spooled a few times and have landed some over 40 pounds. Any decnt rod is fine for trolling for Lake Trout. For jigging I use a smaller baitcaster loaded with braid you will find jigging in the neighborhood of 100' mono is much harder to feel the hits due to it's stretch than braid. In my opinion the Penn 209s are to large and the drags not smooth enough unless you are running 50Lb test but I only troll with smaller lures not the large popgear chub combos. So what you are pulling would help you decide what size to use.

Thanks for the input. Where do you usually fish for them?
I've used the Penn reels for trolling pop gear or for leaded line on the berry, before I had downriggers. My one trip on the Gorge I only pulled out one of those poles once, and that was to use the leaded line to try to get a 3rd pole deep enough with 2 others on the downriggers. The riggers had normal spinning combos targeting kokes. Nothing special. Most of my rod/reel combos are $50 or less and don't have the budget to dump hundreds into a rod/reel. We did have one big hit. I was up near the middle of my pontoon with someone else steering it (trolling) and another guy on the downrigger, trolling pretty close to the ledges. The guy on the downrigger said he thought he had a snag and started working it as a snag. I had the guy driving put it in neutral as it was spooling the line off really fast and we started bringing in the other poles. Well, I knew my downrigger was at about 60'. I looked on the finder and we were over 120' of water. That was no snag. Unfortunately, at the moment we realized that he lost the hookset and it was gone. We probably could have had a really fun fight on our hands (or lost a whole spool of spiderwire) if we had worked it as a hookset and not a snag, keeping more tension on the line at all times.
Now I'm about to the point of begging someone to go to the Gorge with me to try to actually target the macs! I just want to make sure I have gear that will do the job.

Any other tips or ideas, or input on the rods mentioned originally? I'm debating keeping all of them or selling one of the pairs of rods or trading for other good fishing gear.

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