sad news about your friend's son, Dick, thinking of you and them. Becky attended a wake for a 14-yr-old student on Friday; very sad indeed when someone so young passes.

Erik Jacobson and Brian Hanson of "Just Big Muskies" do some topwater trolling and caught a few nice fish doing it in their most recent video. i think they were using the electric motor and pulling baits on the big flats of Mille Lacs. at the end of the video they say they're willing to talk to anyone who contacts them; info is on their website: http://www.justbigmuskies.com/

some guys around here use standard planer boards to push topwaters up over the milfoil. getting a good hook-set is the trouble of course, though if you're getting strikes that wouldn't happen otherwise it would be worth those misses.

another idea i've heard people try is the "dual fin" planer board. a neat trick with this is the ability to flip it over so it planes in the opposite direction. you can actually get a bait to zig-zag with this, or use it to steer a bait in and out by driving it precisely around pieces of structure. if the bait was relatively close behind this type of board and you held the rod in your hands you might be able to get a good hook-set without much slack line. (this is theory, not first-hand experience for me.) http://www.bulletbobber.com/dualfin.html