Tips from the Pros

Fastracs on the Great Lakes
By CHIP PORTER

The first thing my mind jumps to when you mention a Rebel Fastrac are the thousands of giant salmon that I have seen succumb to this bait over the years. This bait, more than any other, opened up the salmon world to a whole new horizon in trolling tactics. Baits that predated the Fastrac, although considered good for their day, limited trollers because of their inability to be able to handle any faster speeds.

The Fastrac blew the doors off the salmon trolling world by allowing fisherman to troll faster and cover more water and contact more active and biting fish.

Fastrac's show their dominance as "The Go To Crankbait" for salmon during two phases of the Great Lakes fishing year. The first is the late spring to early summer timeframe when fishing steelhead over open water. Steelies are notorious for ranging over large areas and can be tough to locate at times. The key to successful open water steelhead fishing is to find the fish quickly. Fastrac's facilitate this process by being able to be trolled at higher than normal speeds, and still have steelies inhale them as if it were the last meal they'd ever see on earth. Look to fish the Fastrac's with no weight, behind in-line planer boards and on flat lines. High monofilament dipsies are also good places to try Fastrac's for open water steel. Look to gaudy colors to target steelies at this time of year, and use the smaller, size 20 Fastrac's (FTJ2).

The other time when Fastrac's own the water is for returning kings. Usually about the last week of August every year the kings start to nose around the river and harbor mouths where they were planted as fingerlings. You can find giant kings running around in some pretty skinny water, all the way as shallow as a couple of feet.   For this reason run Fastrac's tight to the boards to keep them up high and troll fast. To run them on flatlines and still keep them up high, try attaching a big red and white musky bobber to the line about two to six feet above the Fastrac and then let it out a hundred feet back. Try mixing your spread between larger sized 30 (FTJ3) and smaller sized 20 (FTJ2) Fastrac's as fish will show a definite size preference at times.

Fastrac's are also a favorite bait of casters that are working the harbors and river mouths for returning Chinooks. Sling the bait out as far as possible and then crank it down quickly to achieve depth. Try varying retrieves from there, everything from a steady slow crank to herky jerky with a bunch of pauses. Even try burning the bait back as fast as possible.

Cast or trolled, there is no doubt that the Rebel Fastrac continues to dominate the Great Lakes crankbait scene.