[seaslug44]

Two days ago I was fishing near a boat that was trolling parachutes on wire. I watched them hook a fish and fight it with the boat in gear. The angler was pumping and reeling like crazy. I could see a large bass splashing around in the wake as it was towed without mercy. Eventually the fish tired and you could see the fish's open mouth plowing through the water like they were towing a bucket. All of a sudden the fish was gone... The hook pulled.

After the boat continued passing I noticed that the fish was still on the surface. My wife easily netted it. The fish was 35". Its jaw was literally torn at the hinge from all of the pressure. We tried reviving it, but it was no good. I tried deflating all of the gasses (the fish had the bends). After twenty minutes, it just died at boatside. Whether it was legal or not to keep it didn't matter in my mind. I preferred making the fish into a meal for my family rather than wasting it (the fish was over the legal limit and only we would know that it wasn't caught on rod & reel).

A few minutes later, the angler hooked another fish on the troll. This one jumped a few times and then the hook pulled the same way. That fish managed to swim away. We then watched them muscle in a ****tail blue so fast that with the boat in gear the fish was like a water ski on the surface behind them.

My question is this;

You call this fishing???

My advice is this;

LOOSEN YOUR DRAG!!! Just because you are using wire that is a zillion pound test, doesn't mean that a fish's jaw can sustain all that pressure (especially with the boat still in gear!!).

Is this common practice to wire troll with ZERO DRAG???

 

[616357]

Sounds like those "Fisherman" did not know what they were doing.

 

[nightwing34]

yea really....other than the obvious harm being done to the fish, it's also not very good for your tackle...now not only is it fighting a big fish, but the boat's moving in the opposite direction, which is just putting more stress on the rod & reel....

 

[Hunt n' Fish]

That is fishing with wire.

When trolling with wire, you have to keep the boat in gear to keep tension on the wire so it goes on to the reel correctly and so it doesn't kink. With the pressure from the fighting fish and foward motion, you basically have to reel in with full drag. As my father (Spygull) says, the next step would be to attach a winch to the stern.

My father showed me how to troll with wire last season. After catching one fish we put the rod away. I like to fight the fish, and prefer casting to them or jigging them anyway, and that killed a lot of the fun. For those who feel it is more important to boat a fish, it can be a very productive method.

Last fall we discussed this topic at length and George posted that he can troll shad umbrellas with mono and reach the 40 foot depths. At least with mono you can disengage the motor and fight the fish.

This season, I am going to try it with 50 pound braid, (which would probably work with parachutes also). If I need to get deeper, I will just add a heavy drail.

 

[hookem]

thats bull

I troll with (monel) wire all the time. I always take the boat out of gear to fight the fish, not fight the flow of water behind my boat! I never have a problem with how the wire goes on the reel.

That is such crap, the people who were fishing like that have no respect for the fish or environment.

Why dont you just tow a 5 gallon bucket behind the boat? Wire has to go on the reel that way, what a JOKE!!!!!!!

 

[LkyLindy]

Exercise

Whenever I forget to workout at the gym I troll with wire-Great workout out for those biceps-and when the workout is over I stop trolling and go fishing

 

[B.Attitude]

I've been trolling wire for years with spoons and the reason the boat stays in gear is to keep pressure on the fish.If you stop the boat they can shake the big spoons free.When I'm by myself I stop the boat,if there are others on the boat I pop it in and out of gear.It works.
Doc,I only use 40 lb test,not a zillion.

 

[621908]

Wire,braid,right,wrong,etc- ok what about the fish with newly extended jaws dying on the surface?I'm glad you picked up that fish and ate it doctorfish.I once found myself in the same situation finding a 37 1/2 inch bass rolling on the surface which I picked up and kept.The size limit was 38" back then.Yes, the DEC apparently saw me pick it up and pulled along side my boat and gave me a ticket for keeping undersize striped bass.I took this to court and it was dismissed.I agree with doctorfish- Loosen the drag!!

 

[Hipshot]

WIRE LINE

One thing you have to take into consideration while trolling wire is if you have more than one rod out you either have to keep the boat in gear or reel up the lines without fish to prevent from losing mucho dollars in line and lures from snagging the bottom! NOT a fun way to fish, but sometimes necessary!

 

[nightwing34]

didn't even think about wire, the farthest out i usually fish is the FI reef...i was just thinking someone trolling around with a small wire leader on a small umbrella rig lookin for some blues or bass inshore....oops.
didn't mean to cause an uproar, sorry bout that

 

[616385]

WIRE

Wire line puts fish in the boat and you cant argue with that. It certaintly isnt the most enjoyable way to fish but it works.i use stainless wire and employ some drag,if I hook a nice fish will bring in the other line and drop the boat out of gear but to do this it requires more skill from the angler to load the reel properly and reel like **** when the fish swims towards the boat.This is why most Montauk captains keep the boat in gear at all times. Even with rhis method I see very few fish die on the surface and rarely see washed up stripers on the beach.

 

[seaslug44]

I understand the reason for keeping the boat in gear. But you would think that with all that pressure on the fish, there would be no reason to pump the rod and reel like **** without any drag. It reminded me of someone at a boat ramp trying to winch their boat onto their trailer really fast to avoid an approaching thunderstorm.

 

[B.Attitude]

Drags

I fish 40lb monel with the drag set at 10lbs.When a nice fish hits he rips wire out and goes down.
Dr Fish,with the boat in gear and a really nice fish on,the only way to gain on the fish is to pump the rod or else you won't be able to turn the handle on the reel.But crank like a normal person ,not like a mad man.
paulie

 

[seaslug44]

Paulie,

What you described is the way it should be done. It's the "Pumping like a Madman" part with no drag that doesn't make any sense to me.

 

[hookem]

I use monel also and I dont se what the big deal is I enjoy trolloing wire. But when a fish hits it should be angler VS fish not the boat and angler against the fish! If the fish runs toward the boat then you have to reel faster to keep slack out of the line. Placing wire on the reel is easy you just have to use your thumb to make it level.

I had an 17 pound bluefish hit a bunker spoon with 300 feet of wire out, it ran towards the boat for a while, I was on my heels reeling like crazy to keep up. Then he turned around and ran away from the boat and pulled me up on to my toe's, I almost fell. that is the battle, that is why I fish! NOT TO PULL THE HEAD OFF OF MY OPPONENT WITH THE BOAT!!!

 

[seaslug44]

This is an interesting discussion that's worth talking about again...

 

[635995]

I use down riggers and mono,line snaps out of the ball and you fight the fish like you would if you were bait fishing, trolling, pluging, etc.
wire line takes all the fun out it, and besides if your fishing wire your equipment gets the crap beat out of it,not to mention your self.

 

[seaslug44]

GuessWho wrote:
I use down riggers and mono,line snaps out of the ball and you fight the fish like you would if you were bait fishing, trolling, pluging, etc.
wire line takes all the fun out it, and besides if your fishing wire your equipment gets the crap beat out of it,not to mention your self.
I've tried that and had sucess with bluefish and stripers but when fishing terrain that changes in depth quickly do you find it to be difficult?

 

[Leprechaun]

This is an interesting subject, no doubt. While I only wire line fish the South Shore Beaches, and though I haven't done this fishing in 3 seasons now, I was taught that it was considered proper etiquette to take the boat out of gear when retrieving a fish. What I do when a rod goes off is to swing the boat 90-degrees to the lines and put her in neutral. Now the man on the hit rod gets the entire gun'nel length of the ****pit to work with. Assuming a 3-man crew including me at the helm, the other ****pit man immediately picks up the unhit rod (We troll 2 setups) and reels like mad to clear it away from the rod working the fish. Not only does this keep that rod from tangling, but frequently that mad reeling results in a double hookup. My best fish of the year about 5 seasons ago was caught in just this manner - a very nice 29.5lb 43" fish that just had to eat that chrome Crippled Herring right in front of the Rota wreck.

Taking the boat out of gear makes it way less stressful to the rod man AND the fish to retrieve a real tough fighter OR a pair of weed-fouled lines. Plus it will also make it far easier for a merciful captain to recruit a crew every weekend. Even so, almost to a man my crew chooses less physical methods of bass fishing. This to the point that both my wire setups now have monel line on them a very pretty shade of light green. I guess its been more than a while . . . too bad, 'cause wire lining really is a productive way to catch the better-sized bass.

Lep

(This post edited by Leprechaun on 12/24/2005)

 

[635995]

DoctorFish,

Sorry it took so long to get back to you, to answerer your question, No.
If I mark fish at a certain depth and the depth changes while I?m trolling, it?s just a matter of dropping or retrieving line on the down riggers. Back in the 80?s, I would troll
Umbrella rigs, I used (and you?re going to laugh, Penn 30?s with 80lb test).I know this was over kill, but I was loosing a lot of rigs with lighter line. Sometimes we had as many as 5 Big blues on and the 50lb just broke, so I upped it to 80lb and only once did I loose a rig, lobster pots put up a good fight. Lol
Depending on what you are trolling dictates how much depth you need to get down to the fish. Umbrella rigs caused so much drag, that the scope was like 3 to 1. You had to drop 80 to 100 feet just to get down 30.small price to pay when the fish are there, single lures were different of course, I trolled 4 poles, 2 with umbrellas
and 2 with singles. Worked very well for me, not to mention the look on the my friends faces when they had to crank in those 4+ fish,cause I would not stop the boat, unless I had to.

(This post edited by GuessWho on 12/30/2005)