Early season Browns

Because of the unseasonably warm weather we have been having I took the opportunity to drop the boat in the water and chase some brown trout today. Typically using minnows I can target good numbers of small 2-5lb brown trout but today I had had plans of getting that big fish using crank baits in the deeper water. It's the same concept as trolling for walleye with plainer boards and crank baits. I have caught some very good fish in the past doing this but never this early in the season. Like I said I am still very new to this early season trolling because iv never fished out there this time of year. Typically I don't start fishing till march for trout but I figured the same pattern and areas would produce. This is what I is what I was doing: Trolling speed was 1.7, fishing 15-30fow with blue/silver and green/silver reef runners on inline planner boards. I did eventually stop trolling after I caught that big fish, 3 passes of nothing means minnow time. I worked my way trough 24 shiners with success on mostly small fish then headed home. Because of today success I going to do my best to get out next week and continue my early season chase for a 20lber. Cheers, Bryan