If you're going to troll for them, I would ditch the big sinkers/jigs method. If you aren't going to invest in downriggers, use lead core outfits, steel line outfits, and or release dipseys. A 3/8 oz white dollfly w/ a pearl trailer will usually catch fish.

If you're going to bait fish, pull the shiners behind planer boards at the appropriate depths. Bottom fishing w/ shiners is pretty futile as they just lay on the bottom and don't trigger many strikes. Learn to catch and keep alwives and bottom fish, and I guarantee your luck will improve.

As someone else suggested, you'd be money ahead to hire a guide for a day and ask him for a tutorial for setting up your boat and how to impliment different techniques. Gluck, Phil