For early season Browns you need to know the peak times to fish if you want to be consistent. Fishing for Browns in the spring is an early morning and late afternoon thing on sunny days. If it's cloudy you can stay a little later, but I've found that the fish shut down around 10am on most days. That's not to say that you can't catch fish all day, but your best bet is early and late. Mid March until about the second week in June are your best months to catch shallow running Browns. After that the thermocline starts to setup and the fish become scattered and start to head for deeper water.
Location is probably the easiest part to handle. For early Brown Trout action fish the warmest water you can find. Depending on the winter you may be looking for 40 degree water, or like last year in the Oswego harbor, it was 52 degrees. Concentrate off the mouths of tributaries, shorelines, warm water discharges and bays where the water usually warms quicker because of the typically shallow depths. This time of the year I concentrate in the 5-30ft. range, sometimes going out as deep as 50ft. Try looking for mud plumes coming from the tributaries, that water will always be warmer than the surrounding water. Troll from the muddy water to the clear water and back again. If the muddy water runs up to the shoreline, fish there. No matter how shallow the water, get your boards right tight to shore, your biggest fish will be hanging there. I once saw a guy in Rochester pull an 18lb Brown from 6ft. of water while his board bounced off the exposed shoreline.
Presentation requires a host of variables that are quite easy to understand. First off, planer boards are a must, no boards fishing will be slow. Browns are typically boat shy and will swim away from the boat to the waiting lures run from the boards. I've caught Browns from riggers but my success was limited. Run your lures back at least 150ft from the boards and riggers. Next, use light line, 6-8lb. test. I like to use noodle rods but you can get by with light action rigger rods. I run some of my rods with all 6lb. line and others with 6lb. leaders. Let's face it, we all can't afford to respool for every situation there is. When I run leaders, I attach a ball bearing swivel to the main line, then run 6-8ft of leader attaching it to the swivel and then just a snap on the other end. This works fine when I use my Ugly Stick rigger rods. As for lure size, I stick with lures in the 2 1/2-3 1/2in. range. The bait is smaller at this time of the year. I have been successful with larger baits, but the smaller ones usually out-produce the large ones. The last thing in this section is trolling speed. The water is cold so keep your speed slow, say 1.4-2.2mph. Sometimes even slower speeds are the norm.
This is just the first part of this topic. Later in other parts I'll talk more about springtime setups that really work. Lure makes, colors, etc.
Team Total Chaos