Mark Taylor is outdoors editor at The Roanoke Times.

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Mark Taylor

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The deal made sense.

Weekend bass fisherman Mark Reed of Roanoke and his frequent fishing partner would trade seats each trip.

Fishing was tough for Reed when he was in the back.

"He didn't miss a spot," Reed, an electrician, said of his partner's casting efficiency.

With little chance of catching something in the fished-over bank water, Reed would sometimes just let his lure trail behind the boat.

And he caught a surprising number of bass that way.

Or maybe it wasn't surprising. In the complicated world of bass fishing, trolling can be an amazingly effective technique, even though few serious bass fishermen ever use the tactic.

Trolling for bass also can be so simple that even novice anglers can do it effectively, and it's also a relaxing way to fish.

I started trolling for bass when I was a teenager fishing large, heavily pressured reservoirs near my home in Southern Oregon.

We enjoyed active casting tactics but often the fish would not cooperate. When they shut down we'd toss lures - usually basic Rapala plugs - behind our small, oar-powered johnboat and troll weedlines and over weedbeds.

We almost always caught fish.

There are times when trolling simply won't work, such as when bass are holding tight to shoreline cover.

For a good part of the year bass relate to offshore structure that can be effectively targeted with trolling.

In the fall, for example, bass in Southwest Virginia reservoirs often group up and cruise open water looking for tightly balled schools of bait fish.

Trolling can be a good way to find those dispersed fish.

Late in spring, after the spawn, bass often retreat from the shallows to main channel edges. Casting crankbaits and Carolina-rigged plastics perpendicular to the drop is a popular way to target those fish.

However, trolling along the contour of the drop with a crankbait can keep the lure in the strike zone for longer and produce fast action.

During his no-choice-but-to-troll outings, Reed almost always relied on a crankbait.

Points and creek mouths also can be effectively trolled with crankbaits.

Fishermen who want to get more serious can increase their odds by using their electronic fish-finders to follow bottom contours, and also to locate schools of bass. Crankbait choice can then be tailored to match the depth at which the fish are holding.

Color choices are no different than in casting situations, dependent largely on food sources and water color.

With all those variables, trolling can start to get complicated.

A simpler approach is to simply troll slender minnow lures such as Rapalas, Rebels and Thundersticks through shallow bays with lots of bottom vegetation, and along weed lines.

And then there is the approach taught to me by the late Bill Johnson, a longtime family friend whose trolling exploits inspired me to try the tactic.

Johnson had a bunch of lures in his boxes, but when he went bass fishing, that usually meant he was going to toss one of those old black rubber worm lures with three hooks and a small propeller on its nose off the back of the boat. Then he'd just ease along the shoreline, trolling the thing.

He caught some nice bass that way, and a couple big enough for his wall.

And he wasn't even trying.