I came up with the idea of the troll zone while fishing Lake Winnebago for Walleye. I trolled using planer boards and did the usual S turns to vary lure speed. With the advent of GPS controlled trolling motors, the S turns were not compatible. I also noticed I caught a lot of fish when letting the lure out (dead in the water). 2018 led to a very slow bowhunting season for me, so I had a lot of “stand time” to come up with the troll zone idea. I worked on it over Christmas-New Years and had it ready to go by early Feb.
It was then off to the machine shop to get the prototype designed. I built the control box at the kitchen table with the help of Google and a lot of automotive parts. We got the first unit back and experienced quite a bit of success with it trolling for Walleye on Winnebago.
Next step was to design a new control box and find a machine shop to produce more units. My brother, an electrical engineer put in quite a bit of time and is now perfecting our latest control box. I found a local machinist in Marytown (Eric Kremer) a classmate of mine, to do the machining. He did an excellent job. All material is either stainless or aluminum.
The units are all assemble at my home. The units were designed to be used with a track system. Each unit has multiple tapped holes to accomodate different rod holders. I have had the best luck using the traxstech system.
This fall I did extensive testing on the waters of Green Bay. The unit was tested pulling 8-10″ cranks at 3-5 mph in 2-3 foot waves and we had no problems at all. I believe the ram I am currently using could swing as many as 6 planer board/lure combos at once.
The name “Schlupp Solutions” is in rememberance of my best friend who passed way to early at the age of 44 from skin cancer. He was never afraid to try anything, giving me the courage to give this a whirl.
All units are locally made with quality materials. I will have 1 or 2 units available for anyone local that would like to test them out this Spring. Right now, I am selling them on an order only basis.
I am open to thoughts/ideas/suggestions.
Thanks,
Terry Zimmerman