I am strictly a bait fisherman and prefer to mooch as you do, but it is sometimes not as productive as trolling, ecspecially when the fish arent schooled up feeding. Under those circumstaces I will troll a similar setup as some have mentioned with a little twist. I tie teh flasher onto my downrigger ball with a sereis of swivels about two feet long. I run a release clip about five feet above the downrigger. I use about a 8 ft leader and hook the release clip right above the swivel. That way my bait is as close as possible to the flasher.

I started doing it as an experiment to prove that fish are not scared of the cable being pulled through the water. My productivity went through the roof.

The problem is finding a bait hookup that will wont shred the bait at the speeds necessary to troll in order to get the flasher to work properly. I recomend an Abe and Al flasher and a whole herring. You can troll them around until the scales wear off.