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 !!