How The Tadpole Diver Revolutionized Trolling
BY MARK ROMANACK
Off Shore Tackle’s OR36 series Tadpole Divers have in many ways revolutionized how anglers troll live bait rigs for walleye. Designed to achieve greater depths on shorter lead lengths than traditional in-line weights, the Tadpole features a simple, but functional design that works flawlessly every time. The shape of the Tadpole creates a diving lip with a molded in tow arm at the front. A supplied coast lock snap attaches to the tow arm and also to the line coming from the fishing rod. At the back of the Tadpole a skinny tail provides a place to attach harnesses using a second provided snap. It’s recommended to add a barrel swivel or a snap swivel at the tail to mitigate problems with line twist on harnesses. The ideal harness length for fishing with Tadpole Divers is 48 to 72 inches.
Setting The Tadpole Diver
When setting a Tadpole Diver with a spinner rig, place the Tadpole in the water and lower the rod tip to provide a little slack line. The snap on the tow arm will slide into the elbow position, causing the Tadpole Diver to engage in the diving position. Next, simply play out the desired amount of trolling lead. The Tadpole Diver can be fished as a flat line or married up to planer boards to cover more water.
Hooking Up
When a fish is hooked trolling the Tadpole Diver, the resistance of the fighting fish will cause the snap on the tow arm to slide to the forward position. In this position the Tadpole is converted from a diver to an in-line weight, making it easy to reel hooked fish without having to fight the resistance of the diver.
Tadpole Sizes
The OR36 Tadpole Diver comes in four sizes including a No. 1, 2, 3 and a Magnum size. The No. 1 and No. 2 are popular choices for anglers who troll for suspended walleye at 10-25 foot depths. The No. 3 is handy for reaching deeper walleye using the 25-40 foot depth zones. The Magnum Tadpole comes into play when targeting fish using 40-55 feet of water. The respective Dive Curves for all four sizes of the Tadpole Diver are available on the Precision Trolling Data trolling app, including popular lead lengths and trolling speeds.
What Else Can The Tadpole Do?
The Tadpole is very popular with walleye anglers who troll using crawler harnesses or spinner rigs. Tadpole Divers are also useful for trolling small to medium sized spoons for walleye, brown trout, coho and kokanee. For spoon trolling a fluorocarbon leader about 60-72 inches long is ideal. The larger sizes of the Tadpole Divers can also be used to troll salmon gear such as rotators and meat rigs, rotators and trolling flies, cowbell rigs and also rotators and cut plugs. Literally all the common salmon trolling gear can be teamed up with the No. 3 and Magnum sizes of the Tadpole Diver.
Summing It Up
The Tadpole Diver is a great tool for targeting a wealth of species with lots of common trolling gear. Unlike other divers that force anglers to fight the diver when a fish is hooked, Off Shore Tackle’s OR36 Tadpole’s put the fun back into trolling at depth.
