sometimes i just put it in idle or keep going forward because it keeps forward pressure on theh fish.

Use bibed lures like RMGs or Sx40 etc they are really effective. probably a good size tailor.

heaps of them around

I do a fair bit of trolling from my tinny and modded the controls with a tiller extention and a bit of alloy extrusion from the forward/neutral/reverse leverwith 2 cable ties and the emergency cut out forward to the extended trottle control.

This allows me to troll and operate the engine from where I sit instantly.

when a strike occurs I steer it into the wind and put it in neutral to have fun with the fish.

Lures are simple, have a great many variety and try them out till you get the ones that work.

A simple fishfinder is a great help as well to have.

Berkley minnows and surface poppers work for me @ Big W for less than $4.00 a pop plus a wire trace.

hi mate , small minnow lures are definately better than metal slices for trolling as they get down below the wash of the motor, we have been having great success for about 6 weeks now and last week the tailor were going off between the narrows and matilda bay , mainly just off the old brewery jetty, our best lures have been halco scorpion 35s in the gold colour and the fluoro green and small yo zuri crystal minnows about 80mm long. 3.5 - 4 knots seems to be the optimum speed for us .  cheers

maybe have a tinny-get-together one evening/afternoon to learn from each other and a bit of fishing fun on the river.

shared knowledge and other idea's is always good.

Generally you accelerate a bit to set the hooks and put the engine in idle to fight the fish.

When I was trolling Swan 2 weeks back my mate was controlling the outboard whilst I sit in front. When the rod buckled, I struck hard a few times before fighting the fish.

Shallow divers work bests for tailor and if you caught one, there are more around. Make a U-wee back and troll back and forth and you will get more. Caught my tailor on Yozuri  Crystal minnow, Ofmer X-Minnow, Ryobi Trappers 125 minnow. Whilst trolling you may want to give the rod a few jerks every now and then so as to impart some further action to the lures. I notice lures with long slim baitfish profile are the top scorers. Also, all the above minnow gives off a fair bit of sparkle and that's another thing to look out for when choosing lures to troll the river. Oh my mate caught his tailor on X Raps 10 & 08.

Also caught a flat head of 48cm using deep diver. The bib has to be close to scrapping the bottom to pick up flatheads. Therefore, having weed on your bib is part and parcel of the game. Once your rod stop vibrating correctly you know you have weeds on your bib or trebles.

To me, you troll just fast enough so that your lure is swimming well and I am not sure how fast is that cos different lures react differently to speed.

Good luck and tell us how you go.

Thanks for the info guys.

One other thing is how do you guys connect your lures to your leader? I was tying them so i only tried 2 different lures. Funny thing is that i have a yo zuri minnow in my tackle box and didnt use it because i thought it wouldnt be suitable.

Oh and how far should the lure be from the back of the boat?

 Either a loop knot like rapala knot or a strong small snap like the Decoy egg snap. Personally I use decoy V -snap.

Just as everyone else has said, although we always just go straight to neutral when someone gets a strike.  But also, when you do land a fish, don't be so eager to start trolling immediately either.  Where there is one tailor, there ore often many and once we found them (by trolling) we cleaned up by just casting lures and retrieving at speed.  Watch your drift and when you move out of the area start the troll again.

A lot of good advice.

I'm with fishnut. We have had some great sessions by finding schools of tailor in the Swan on the troll. Once you hit a good patch, just drift around it casting lures. I find it a little more fun than trolling also.

Biggest mistake I see when people are trolling in the swan is when they see birds working the troll over the top of the area, troll next to it.

Me n a mate have been having great success of small bibbed minnows and gold twistys. I upgrade the trebbles on my lures in particular the twisties that tend to come stock with some pretty avg hooks.

i was running a 20gram twisty yesterday at around 6knots in the river.  did much the same as your 10gram twisty and didnt look too convincing.

i then attached a good sized ball sinker above the swivel to get the leader line in the water.

found some birds and landed some tailor up to 36cm.   

read another post and thinking next time i'll use laserpro to get the larger ones interested.  bummer, had some in the boat too.

also used the acceleration technique to set the hooks.  had plenty spit the hook in their last jump before i'd get them in the boat.  might take noxious's comment onboard and change the hooks

all happened around 4pm im the area east of the RPYC

45cm 20lb leader to a swivel and some split shots at around 15cm intervals to keep it below surface . never not caught any.. :)