Old School Inshore Wireline Trolling

[Gerry Zagorski]

Seems like quite a few questions about this so thought I'd dust of one of the old articles off I wrote on the subject. Hopefully some others will chime in here....


In certain conditions wire line trolling can be one of the most effective ways to catch inshore Stripers and Bluefish. This is especially true when the tide is not moving and there are no concentrations of fish for you to set up on and drift, livelin or anchor and chunkor clam. Trolling allows you to cover more ground and find the fish and it keeps your lures moving when the tide slacks. In addition, it’s no secret that the larger fish are usually on the edges or at the bottom of a school. Just like us, larger/older fish are usually less aggressive, smarter and more opportunistic feeders then the youngsters. They tend to let the youngsters chase the bait around and casually feed on the bait that falls through the school to the bottom.

The reason wire line trolling in particular produces so well is because it allows you to get trolled baits deeper down in the water column then monofilament lines. The reason for this is that it’s heavier then mono so it sinks faster. It’s also due to its smaller diameter compared to the equivalent pound test mono. (Side note: Similarly this is one of the same reasons many fluke sharpies will use braided lines instead of mono. The smaller diameter of braided lines allow you to use less weight to hold bottom in fast moving currents)

OK… Let’s switch to what equipment you will need….
I prefer to use a 7-foot pole with a soft tip and Carbaloy guides. The soft tip gives bunker spoons the action needed to be effective and Carbaloy guides are needed because wire line will tear through softer material guides. I also recommend using 300 feet of 30LB Monel wire line backed by a hundred yards of 30 lb mono. Join the 2 with a barrel swivel small enough to pass through your reel and rod guides. I don’t like Stainless since it kinks too easy and is difficult to handle. At the end of the wire use a haywire twist to join a beaded chain swivel (this helps reduce line twist) and an 8-10 hyfoot length of 50lb leader material. At the end of the leader get a 50lb test snap swivel and this is where you will connect your trolling lures.


For reels I recommend the Penn 113H or the Penn 330 GTI.

The 113H has a chrome spool, which is desired because it reduces the effects of the wire corroding the spool. I also like the 330 GTI because it has a line guide and makes it easy to get the wire back on the spool evenly when you’re reeling in. Although it has an aluminum spool the line guide can be used count how many feet of line you have out. The way you do this is to pull line off the reel and watch the line guide. When it moves from one side to the other measure the amount of line it took then you can count how many times the line guide passes from side to side to judge the amount of line you have out. With out a line guide your stuck marking you wire every 50 feet so you can tell how much line you have out. Some wire line companies are pre-marking their lines. If you don’t have pre marked line you can use a small piece of telephone wire wrapped tightly around the line to mark it. The amount of line you have out is important but we will get to that later…..



Now that your all rigged up let’s get to the fun part. Trolling …..
First of all it’s best to troll in an area where there are or there is likely to be fish (duh). If your not marking fish on your sounder or seeing any birds I would concentrate on channel edges or any other structures like rips or tide lines you can find. Pay close attention to the depth of the area because here is where the wire line markings come in handy…. I typically like to troll the bottom 1/3rd of the water column. The general rule of thumb for wire is that it will sink at the rate of 1 foot of depth for every 10 feet of wire you have out. If your desired depth were 10 feet you’d want to have 100 feet of wire out. If your line isn’t marked then I would let enough line out so that your making contact with the bottom and then crank some line in so your running near the bottom. However, if your marking fish on your sounder pretty consistently at 20 feet you’d want 200 feet of wire out. Once you get the desired amount of line out you want to put your reel in free spool with the clicker on and adjust the line tension just tight enough so no line is coming off the reel. Put the rod in the holder or better yet out rodders. They keep the pole lower to the water and spread out which tends to make the lines run deeper and keeps them further away from each other so the lures don’t get tangled when you make turns. While we are talking about turns make wide slow turn or else your lines are likely to cross.

What and how to troll….

Trolling speed and direction are very important. General rule is slow for Stripers (between 2.5 and 2.8 knots) and 3 knots or more for blues. If your using Bunker spoons I would ignore the speed and look at the rod tip to determine the correct speed. When your pulling a bunker spoon at the correct speed the rod tip should be pulsing up and down and move from side to side once and a while. If your rod is constantly pulsing your spoon is spinning and that’s not good. As far as direction is concerned this is somewhat trial and error since there are so many variables like current wind. In general it’s best to be either trolling with or across the direction of the current and make lazy S turns with your boat. Pay close attention to your direction when you hook up because often times the fish will only hit when your trolling in certain directions. One other tip is to take the boat out of gear once and a while. This allows the lures to flutter down and is often times enough to trigger a strike. I can’t tell you how many times this little tip made the difference between fishing and catching.


As far as lures are concerned, in general it’s best to match the hatch. You want to have your lures look like whatever baitfish is present. I’m after quality fish and there are mature Bunker around I use Bunker Spoons. If I’m after quantity and there are small baitfishes around I use Umbrella rigs with tubes or shad rigs. Other effective lures are single red tubes (usually a minimum of 12 inches) or Parachute rigs tipped with a pork rind. If you don’t have a wire line set up one way to cheat is to use Stretch 25’s and 30’s. These lures will run 25 or 30 feet down on regular mono line since they have large lips on the front of the lure that works against the forward motion to make them dive.



OK so now you’re hooked up…….
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Once you get a hook up you engage the reel so you’re now fighting the fish on the preset drag setting. No need to set the hook as the fish will set it themselves. Your drag should always be set to 30% of the breaking strength of the line. You can set your drag by using a fish scale with a hook at the end of it. Tie your line off to the hook and pull the scale. Your drag should start give line when the scale reads 10 lbs (in this example your using 30lb test). Here is the most important part of the whole wire line fishing deal……DO NOT PUMP THE FISH WHILE REELING AND KEEP THE BOAT IN GEAR. Wire line is stiff. If you let any slack in the line the fish will use that slack as leverage and spit the hook just as sure as ****** Bob can catch Sea Robins…If you pump the pole up and down you may create slack. Reel the pole keeping constant pressure on the fish with the rod tip always pointed up. You can slow the boat down some but keeping it in gear keeps pressure on the fish.

Don’t blame it on me…..

If your not catching fish you need to try some different things. Speed up or slow down, use a drail weight on one pole and no weight on the other. Troll in different directions. Mix it up and find out what’s working that day and stick to it.

Happy trolling fellas !!

[Gerry Zagorski]

One more specific to Bunker Spoons. Ricky D if you are out there and read this I know you have more then a few tips up your sleves..

Trolling Bunker Spoons – Size Does Matter

Trolling bunker spoons is one of the few areas in life where size really does matter. Rod size that is ….. A 5 or 6 foot rod is fine for wire line trolling tubes, umbrella rigs, plugs and parachute rigs but you definitely need to go longer for trolling Bunker Spoons. It’s the action of the long soft bouncing tip that transfers to the spoons through the wire that give them the action they need to trigger strikes. A short pole on the other hand typically has little bounce and the bounce is well…..short.

If you ever saw a pole made especially for Bunker spoons you'd see what I mean. The poles are usually 7 to 8 feet long and have a soft tip. When the spoons are working right the tip bends a foot or so during each pulse. Every once and a while (say 10-15 secs) you will get a long deep 2 foot bend. This happens when the spoon changes direction and often times is what triggers a strike. It's the give and take of the rod tip pulsing and snapping back that gives the spoon the needed action. The reason you troll with wire instead of mono is 2 fold 1) it runs deeper then mono line because of its weight and lower diameter. 2) and more importantly, wire has no stretch so it transfers the action of the pole tip to the spoon more effectively then mono.

A few other tips.... Every once and a while take the boat out of gear and let the spoon flutter down in the water column a bit. This change in motion often triggers strikes. We were out on the Shrewsbury rocks one time trolling for hours with out a bump. Tried this and were hooked up on both rods almost immediately.

Another tip is to make sure the spoon is working correctly. Too fast a troll and the spoon will simply turn in circles. Too slow and you get hung up on the bottom and the rod tip will not bounce/bend. There are 2 ways you can tell if you’re trolling the right speed. One is to troll the spoon right beside the boat and make sure it's not spinning. The other is to watch the rod tip. If you have a fast steady continuos pulse of the tip your spoon is most likely just spinning in circles. Your should have a somewhat slow pulse of the rod tip with an intermittent deep bend as mentioned above.

Lastly, you can't just set the RPMs and troll in the same direction in a straight line. Wind and current as well as the direction your trolling will effect how the spoons run. You must make speed adjustments by watching the rod tip for the correct action. You should also troll in a lazy S pattern and in different directions to see what is working best. One day we were trolling Round Shoal and the only time we where catching fish is when we were running with the tide.

Spoons are one of the more difficult things to troll correctly. What worked yesterday might not work today. They might not produce the quantity of a Shad or Tube Umbrella rig, they do however consistently catch bigger fish if worked properly.

Hang on a sec..... I think I hear my drag screaming

[Pete]

Great stuff Gerry! Now that's detail.

[Capt Derek Fisher Price 3]

Great article Gerry

[dfish28]

Here is a related question I have that im working on myself shortly.
With the penn 113hs reel how much 50# backing goes on the spool before you tie on your 300 feet of wire I had that setup for a long time but had since stripped more of the 50 off to have 600 feet of marked wire cause I didnt like using trolling weights to get the tackle down deep enough to fish where the fish were hanging a number of years ago and have since forgotten where i started I think it was like half the spool... and for a tip I use a line counter that I actually purchased in florida where there big on depths and fixed this onto my seeker 8' trolling rod as my marker and man it helps especially when your by the rocks and got to bring em up fast so you dont hook a rockfishe so you dont forget where your at as far as marks go its a redundant system but works well with low friction marks I use marine shrink tubing with the glue inside- and safety point I had replaced one bolt in my rodholders with a stainless eye bolt to give an easy area to secure a safety line... appreciate any feedback That was a great article Gerry...!

[Capt. Lou]

All quality points regarding wire line trolling. When I actively chartered most of inshore troll trips were pulling wire. Checking my old log books the last time I pulled the wire was 2004. Prior to that had used it since early seventies.
Originally loaded 300 yds on 4/0 Penns ,tape marked 3M electrical color every 50' starting 150'.
Took me many moons to cut down to 150' per reel added a drails of various size when required & got the job done no issues. If that wire was lost I kept pre spoold wire on borad ready to go. Relied on 150# barrell to connect to ld, The barrell size was chosen to run the guides w/o any hangups.
Their is a major differance in rod selection when pulling the spoons as opposed to the rigs.
Get maxium fish ability out of the spoons I prefer 9' soft taper tipped rods . Bigger heavier boats will not totally pause on waves as will smaler lighter ones,thus sending a slack line momentarily to your spoon. The long rods seem to dip w/ boat and retain some foreward motion not interruping their pulse. This applies primarily to striper fishing.
This has been my obseravtion in fihing the wire some 30 plus seasons .