Tips
& Techniques
TROLLING WITH WIRE LINE (SOME IDEAS)
If you are using wire line it is because you need to
go deep and can’t get there with the lures or
monofilament tackle you are using. In this case wire
is the way to go.
Trolling wire line is no big deal, but you must pay
attention to details and keep alert. If you’ve
never used wire and are going out there to fish and
learn by trial and error, I would not recommend it.
Read any articles that you can find and compare ideas.
A pair of Rod Riggers is “Must Have”
and as you would guess, the E-Z Out-Rodders
would be the way to go. They have been tested and compared
to the others on the market, you will find these the
best and easiest to use. You need to have a good spread
on your tackle because you will be sending tackle out
a good distance. Probably 150 feet or more and you want
to cover as wide an area as possible. If your spread
is too narrow you stand a good chance of having a lot
of crossovers on turns. Outriggers won’t do because
the tackle is usually too heavy for the rigger clip
to hold. Putting your rods in the flush mount holders
makes your spread too close and since the rods are almost
straight up in the air, it adds about 50 feet to your
drop back. It is now possible for you Tuna Trollers
to use rod riggers too. Our E-Z Out-Rodders
have been tested in the Northeast Canyons for Tuna and
White Marlin, as well as off the Florida Coast for both
Wahoo and Sailfish. In both tests the E-Z
Out-Rodders were successful.
Get your boat up to speed. About 4 MPH is a good starting
point. Send in your rigs. Umbrella rigs, plugs, spoons,
squids or whatever. To do this, drop your lures into
the drink and let out the wire. Do it slowly if you
are in shallow water or rocky areas because a slack
wire line will sink quickly. You’ll need to keep
tension on your line while sending it out. One way to
do this is to cut back on your reel’s drag and
ride it. I don’t like to “ride” the
drag. I’d rather have a fish ride it. I press
the side of my spool with the fingers of my free hand
to keep some tension on the line. Don’t let go
if a fish strikes. You may have to thumb the spool with
the hand that is holding your pole at this point. If
you let go of the side of the spool before thumbing
it to keep tension on, you will get a backlash. Backlashes
in wire are devastating.
To determine the depth the rule of thumb is, send out
10 feet of wire for every foot of depth. That’s
what the colored marks in the wire are for. Remember,
the marks are at 150, 200, and 250 feet. This will get
you down 25 feet real easy. If you need to get down
deeper, which is seldom, you’ll have to let out
some of your backing which I avoid as much as possible,
slow down (not good because you’ll loose some
of the action on your lures) or clip on a drail or other
trolling weight. Once your at the depth you want to
be at place the rod in the E-Z Out-Rodder.
Then set your drag at about 2 or 3 pounds after your
rigs are working properly. The best pro’s are
using a light drag, even for tuna. If you consider the
speed of the boat, the drag of the line and rigs and
that a fish usually rushes the lure and turns away,
the 2 or 3 pounds is up in the two digit area. Tight
drags tear off too many fish, break rigs, lines and
rods. With a light drag, the fish can make his first
panic run and tire out a bit. After that first run,
I tweak the drag up a bit and start reeling him in.
If I’m not making any progress, I’ll keep
tweaking it up until I do as long as the fish isn’t
still making those long panic runs. You can back off
on the drag when the fish is in the danger zone near
the boat. I set the drag so when I pull the line off
the reel by hand, there is just enough drag to hold
the rigs. If you need to speed the boat up to avoid
crashing lures into upcoming structure or a boat in
the process of cutting you off, and your line starts
to run off, your drag is perfect. Just temporarily tighten
the drag until the situation clears.
While trolling, you should make turns as wide as possible
to avoid crossovers. The crossover dilemma is greatly
reduced with our riggers because your line enters the
water quickly and your drop back is reduced by as much
as 50 feet. Since your line is in the water so much
closer to your boat, there’s not as much free
line in the air which crosses over very easily. The
water tends to keep the lines separated much better
than air! Sometimes, tight turns can’t be avoided
due to wind speed, current speed, in a tightly packed
fishing fleet. |
