[asiegel]

On my current boat (42') we have been putting out as many as 14 lines plus 2 teasers while trolling, but my catch numbers have not gone up & I would swear that they have even gone down.

I'm thinking of backing down to a more traditional 9 rod spread this summer & I'm wondering what the consensus is on # of lines in the water.

 

[MakoMike]

IMHO more is better at least up to the point where you don't get everything tangles when a fish hits. Especially on the slow days when you can't figure out what it is that the fish want, then you just throw everything at them.

 

[Jigalow]

I've always heard it's not so much the size but what you do with it...

That being said I'd say bigger is generally better but if that's not working you need to make adjustments to lure color, size, and placement of in the spread

 

[tunatamer]

Andy,
The way I've always gone about it is to get as many lines in the water in a spread that I feel the number of people in my crew depending on their experiance can handle. I've had better numbers of putting fish in the boat with 7 lines as opposed to 10 or more lines. IMHO There's no sense in having 14 lines in the water when you only have a crew of 4 or 5 people on board. In my experiance more times than not this won't increase your catch rate, but deacrease the number of fish you put in the boat because of tangles and fish left spooling rods unattended for some time.

 

[06405]

It is not all about having a lot of lines out in your spread. It is having the right stuff trolled in the spread, and the right positions the lures are trolled best in. Weather the lures are trolled far back or trolled up close depending on what the conditions are and where they run best, and what lure will match the hatch on what the fish are eating. It all depends on what they are eating change the spread up if you are marking fish and are not getting hit throw other color lures and different styles out. Move the spread up close or putt them way back, or in front of the wake or behind it, change speeds, put the boat in neutral let the spread sink down a little and then bump it in gear usually entices some bites. Also maybe try scaling down to thinner leader material we found 150 leader to work best for us on are regular lures. Also maybe try scaling down to a smaller spread 9,10,11 rods work well for us.



This post edited by 06405 05:48 PM 05/20/2008

 

[clementine]

I'd say use whatever you are confident with. If you feel up to the task of trolling 14 rods, go for it, but that can get to be a real pain in the a$$ when you have to adjust your lures everytime you change direction. I doubt there would be that much of a difference in using 7-9 rods vs. using 12-14 rods. iF you want to make you're spread look much bigger use mostly spreader bars...

 

[Marc77]

In my opinion, more is not better. It is the boat's wake that attracts the tuna to come up into it, not the lures. Once the tuna come up into the wake, they will hit whatever lures are there. Although, at that crucial time, some lures work better than others.

I have caught many tuna while trolling just one lure. In fact, when the troll fishing is slow, such as in the middle of the day, I have caught many albacore by just trolling one or two very small lures. (We troll ten to fifteen lures all morning long without a strike. We then pull all the lures out and just fish with one or two and we hook up. Go figure??? I do not have any explanation for this. All I know is that from many years of doing it that it works.)

 

[hardcore]

truthfully, i feel that the fish are not responding to trolling the way they used to. its not just you, its many good fisherman having that problem. its just an opinion that i have but after so many years of so many boats out there trowing chunks, i feel that these fish are being trained to eat that way. just look how the bluefin follow the scallop boats and wait for the dinner bell. we are making the fish lazy

 

[MakoMike]

hardcore wrote:
truthfully, i feel that the fish are not responding to trolling the way they used to. its not just you, its many good fisherman having that problem. its just an opinion that i have but after so many years of so many boats out there trowing chunks, i feel that these fish are being trained to eat that way. just look how the bluefin follow the scallop boats and wait for the dinner bell. we are making the fish lazy

Yeah that's it, the go on a diet until the chunking/scalloping fleet arrives on the scene.

 

[asiegel]

All great input thank you! We rarely have tangles or problems with 14 lures, but it is more work for sure. I think I will scale back some.

Any thoughts about teasers? We use one fender and one chugger run off the riggers. The fender swims under the first spreader bar and the chugger jumps in and out of the first wave.

This post edited by asiegel 10:08 AM 05/21/2008

 

[MakoMike]

asiegel wrote:
All great input thank you! We rarely have tangles or problems with 14 lures, but it is more work for sure. I think I will scale back some.

Any thoughts about teasers? We use one fender and one chugger run off the riggers. The fender swims under the first spreader bar and the chugger jumps in and out of the first wave.

Andy, FWIW we have had good success running birds off the outer riggers and center rigger. The big Boone or Yozuri birds. I run the yozuris off the outers and the boone down the middle.

 

[pipedream]

I've always found teasers to be a sometimes they help and sometimes they hinder type of thing.While we usually start out with a teaser in the spread we'll try taking it out and putting it back in several times till we see what works.I've had it work both ways,sometimes we hooked up 30 seconds after taking the teasers out and other times 30 seconds after putting it back in.

 

[carlynewlondon]

I went from a 8 rod spread in 2006 to a 13 rod spread in 2007 and doubled my catch. I think more importantly was more experiance and lure selection within the spread. I certainly had many more multiples than I did in 07. I had a lot more sigles than I would have liked and many of them were on the long rigger. This year I want to try to "tighten it up" some to entice more strikes in a denser pattern.

 

[614827]

T'ZERS...T'ZERS...T'ZERS

HI:
On all my trolling lures, I've gone to the three(3) T'ZERS setups on my Leaders to all my lures. Y?
They ACT like ROADSIGNS to your HOOKLURES. Even my 4,3/4 inch CEDR PLUGS have three(3) T'ZERS on each leader.
In the ocean , your eating or being eaten. Tune will come up from the side of your spread and SEE the T'ZRES, They home in on it and then SEE the HOOKLURE.
Since all fish will then SMASH the HOOKLURE, your hookup ration will go up. Y the HOOKLURE and not the T'ZERS? Easy...The T'ZERS are running for their LIVES. They are LOOKING ALL AROUND THEM and will see their PREDATORS!!!!! NOT SO WITH THE HOOKLURE. YEAH, thats right , NOT THE HOOKLURE. Y. "cause if your trying to catch the T'ZERS, YOU CANNOT WATCH YOUR OWN TAIL................EASY PICKINGS FOR THE PREDATOR THEIR TRYING TO CATCH. Which one would ytou go for? The fish thats looking out for itself , OR the one ths TOO BUSY trying to eat his own dinner?
I build all my rigs that way.
WACKM 'N STACKM
Joseph B...aka...AncientMariner

 

[CaptainFweddy]

The Law of Diminishing Returns comes into play here. If you don't have the crew capable of handling all the lines you are pulling, then you are asking for a mess. Tangles will inevitably ensue and you'll wind up spending more time dealing with them & losing gear & fish at the same time than you will be sinking the gaff...

Run enough lines you can efficiently deploy, clear & fight fish on with the capable hands aboard...