Striper Trolling Gear

[Gerry Zagorski]

Been seeing lots of inquiries on the social media sites about what kind of gear you need for trolling Stripers so I thought I'd tackle it here...

First of all, any self respecting Striper troller is going to want to pull Bunker spoons since they seem to be the go to method when targeting larger fish. The rods used for trolling spoons are unique but can also be used for trolling, mojos, stretches and umbrella rigs so why not get a set up that you can use for everything and spoons??

A bunker spoon rod is typically 7 or 8 feet, rated for 30 pounds and has a slick butt which makes it easier to get out of the rod holder with the pressure of a fish on it. The most important feature of a Bunker rod is a soft whippy tip. The soft tip in conjunction with the no stretch line quality of wire or braided line is what imparts the correct action from the rod tip to the spoon. If your spoons are not running correctly you might as well stay home on the couch

Old school trollers like to use wire but many like me have switched over to braid.. Wire does have an advantage since it sinks better but braid has a very thin diameter so it does not have as much resistance in the water and it does not stretch. To make up for not sinking as well as wire, you can add a drail weight. If you do decide to go the wire line route you are going to need to buy a rod with Carboloy guides since wire is abrasive and can damage regular guides. You will also need a reel with a stainless spool since the combination of wire and saltwater causes electrolysis on will corrode aluminum spools. So for me, braided line is the way to go...

As far as a reel, some might argue, but I think a lever drag over a star drag reel is the right way to go here and for all trolling applications. With star drag you are either on preset drag or nothing... With a lever drag, you can make some finer in between drag adjustments which helps when trolling... You can nudge the lever up to give just enough resistance to keep line from coming off the reel against the resistance of whatever your trolling yet let the fish take some line when they hit... Once they hit you move it up to strike which is your preset drag and fight the fish. And if you ever need to you can move it up to full to get some additional leverage or free a sang. A lot easier to do this on lever drag reel and not have to mess with the star drag in the middle of fighting a fish...

I'll back my reel with some 30 pound mono, join it to 300 feet of 65 pound braid with either a uni to uni or improved alberto knot... At the end I''ll tie a high quality 100 pound snap swivel. The snap swivel makes it easier to change lures and what comes after that depends on what i'm trolling....

If bunker spoons the next thing will be my drail weight with beaded chain on each end, From the drail a 10 foot piece of 80 pound mono and at the end, another 100 pound snap swivel that gets attached to the spoon.

If I'm trolling streches, mojos or umbrellas, I won't use a drail but you still want a 10 foot shot of mono at the end since mono makes it easier to leader a fish at the side of the boat where braid will could cut your hands...

Happy trolling