Having been mostly land based since taking up fishing I though when I hired a boat with a mate that I would buy a little trollcraft lightning minnow 3.5 gram and see how that goes . Heres the problem, When I held my rod out the back with the rod tip down I had no problem but as soon as I put it in the holder it was bouncing all over the surface or stayed down for 10 seconds then up again. Having no experience in trolling and mind you it was in a tinnie at ten knots I just couldnt get this thing to dive.

Anyone got any tips on how to combat such a problem.

you need to keep the rod lying flat for alot of lures ,,it also depends on what depth the lure is supposed to swim at ,,i think most lures go on bid size and angle ,the bigger the bib and angle of the bib the deeper it should go , a minnow ide say would go to about 3-5 ft normally ,,a few of these young tossers should be able to help a bit more ,,oh yeah when trolling you need to set the motor speed at virtually idle , a tiny bit more then idle ,but that all depends on conditions like tide going in or out and what the wind is doing as well ,jas

Thanx Ferret Fooker

Joey tis an easy prob to overcome, a lure not running right wont catch any wittle fishys

There's a few methods but the easiest is prob to use a release clip tied somewhere on the boats transom

This will make your rod perform like a flat line, keeping your line down low to the water & out of any cross wind as well

I use them sum times when trolling out wide esp when conditions are up the crap out there, they also avoid tangles when turning the boat

There's the expensive wuns with tention adjustment which ewe dont need just get the peg type wuns & sit your rod as far forward on the boat as ewe can, this will counteract dropback on your mainline

mate that seems like a bit of overkill just for a few little hardbody lures ,,jas

Not @ all

Clips prob cost less than the lure a bit of cord line tied to them

Not an overkill if it solves the prob

No use varing troll speed cause most of the time you're using different types of lures so these clips are ideal

When trolling skirted lures I've got 3 of each BUT all Weighted different to suit condition

Like I said earlier ewe cant catch fish if your lures are running right, that's why to many people catch NUT TING

I also find it annoying when peeps claim this lure is better than that wun

It's not the lure that catch's fish it's the angler knowing how to use it all lures will catch fish if used correctly

ive never seen it done that way so i cant really comment on it ,i agree if its used properly and the angler knows how to manipulate the actions of the lure then as you said any lure should be capable of catching fish,,useing skirted lures to me is different than hardbodied lures ,,when trolling hard bodied lures you only need to pick the right lure to suit the depth you wish to fish at, then what i do and many other fisherpeople do when trolling hardbodies is to hang your lure over the boat in the water and adjust your speed to get the best swimming action out of your lure ,which when trolling most hardbodies is about a medium walking speed ,as you said you use 3 at different weights this can be done most of the time useing different hardbodies as well if you know what your doing ,,,alot of freshwater fisho's have used this way for years including myself for at least 20 years and have nearly allways caught fish,,this is my method and it works great for me and many others ,some may be different ,as yourself ,,jas

What do these release clip look like?

I also use release clips placed on my rear bollards for flat lining, very effective way of setting trolling lines.
However it's a bit hard to set up release clips in this situation where a boat is hired for a day, 1/2 day or whatever.
Your biggest problem was you were going too fast for the type of lure you had and was using, should have slowed down to about walking pace
and then you would see the lure working from the tip of your rod would be rapidly bobbing up and down in tiny little strokes, similar to vibrating
or simply shaking up and down.
There is trolling and there is trolling, all sorts of different applications and different lure types as well as live or dead bait trolling.
Only experience and time on the water will teach you what application to use in what circumstance.
You could argue all day about different lures.spreads/speeds etc etc etc it never ends,
but simple answer to your question is you was going too fast.
The recommended retrieve rate/troll speed for the particular lure you was using is 3 kph.

Thanks all for the input guys, I will persist a little more next time. It was giving me the sh*ts at one stage when i could see it going great at the back of the boat then I let out some line and it turned into a popper.
Will try the speed variation as well. From what you guys were saying we were going to fast. We didnt try it at a walking pace it was a little quicker than that.

Joey. Just a small tip mate, some of the better brand lures have suggested methods on the back of the pack, troll/retrieve speeds depth the lure swims at etc, these are guides that give you a starting point, as you become more experienced you won't need to look at the instructions as you will be able to look at a lure and know what it was designed to do.
You should get to go fishing with some of the guys on this site and they could teach you first hand what to do.

Not @ all Frank !

All hire boats are built to a certain survey standard cant recall which wun

Anyways they all have grab rails as part of the survey code

And that's why I suggested release clip tied to a bit of cord line

Ewe can tie the other end to the grab rail.

Could also use rubber bands tied to the main line as well if ewe dont want to get any release clips

2 twists of the rubber band around your mainline then bring wun end through the loop of the other end & pull tight

A snap swivel tied onto a bit of cord/heavy mono which in turn gets tied to the grab rail or anywhere else aft of the boat

Take the rubber band loop & clip the snap swivel through it tis as easy as that

I use rubber bands when trolling skirted lures on my outriggers rather than release clips

And attach rubber band to a stinger line