I don't claim to be an expert with umbrella rigs, but I can provide you with a few tips.  I fish Lake Mead for stripers and over the past four years have used umbrella rigs with good success.  First of all, make sure you have the right equipment to handle the rig.  You will need a medium-heavy to heavy rod.  I use a short, fat tuna stick for my rig.  Next, make sure you select heavy line for towing the umbrella.  These rigs put quite amount of drag on your pole.  I use a minimum of 20 lb. braid and most my reels are spooled with 30-65 lb. braid, depending on size of the rig and number of baits attached.  Level-wind reels are most suited for this setup.  Start off with a simple 4-wire rig.  Most will offer mid-point tie-offs (allowing up to 8 baits to be attached off the wires), but keep it simple starting out and only use the ones on the end of the wires.  You will also have any eye in the middle of the rig where the wires cross for an additional tie.  This is where I run one of my trailers.  Check your local fishing regulations.  Arizona allows two baits, each having a maximum of 2 hooks to be deployed on one pole.  You will have to make teasers out of the remaining baits by removing their hooks.  Next, keep your teaser leads short!  Stagger their lengths by a few inches to resemble a random swimming pattern.  Your hooked bait leads can be anywhere from 12-18" long.  Now for the baits.  I prefer the Storm 4" wild-eyed shad.  These baits closely resemble the size of shad in the lake and always produce bites!  Now the fun part.  Get your boat up to trolling speed.  Now drop your rig just under the water next to your boat and make sure all the baits are running true and not tangling with each other.  Lake Mead is a huge lake and I run my umbrellas anywhere from 75-150' behind the boat.  Most rigs will run between 12-15' down.  One tactic I use is to slow down (or stop momentarily) and start up again.  This allows to rig to fall and rise again, triggering strikes!  Be careful though, do not let these rigs bottom out.  I've lost several rigs when I was first starting out.  You also learn real quick that when you stop the boat, get back on your pole and crank that rig in before it snags or bottoms out on the rocks!!  These rigs do produce lots of fish and are manageable provided you match your components.

Good Luck

We use umbrella rigs here in the Chesapake Bay mostly in the spring &  late fall/winter to catch the largest of the Stripers. We use the umbrella's with a parachute rig's and on the parachute a nine inch rubber shad as the trailor. This gives the incoming fish an attractive target of good size to strike. Most Bay fisherman use Planer boards to get a wide spread of over 200 yards in some cases. A boat that is lets say a 21 foot center console can run up to 12 rods with no problems using the Planer boards. those 12 rods & rigs covering a sprad of 200 yards wide with lines as far to the rear of the boat of 220 yards or more covers such a huge area that you  can cover enormous amounts of water in very little time. Most guys have GPS's with way point markers & once you get a strike mark the spot & keep trolling the area. We catch fish from about 30 inches to over 50 inches on these rigs.

See the below link for a how to on making your own planer boards. Good for use on big water like large lakes, bays or inshore ocean fishing.

http://www.fishingclub.com/Communit...p;t=141162


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