Trolling gear setup

[Vermillion]

Today I am putting the finishing touches on my gurdy setup and occurred to me that if my lead hangs up on bottom I might need a break away cable to save my gear, and only lose my cannon balls. I was thinking of six feet of downrigger cable to hook up between my gurdy wire and my cannon ball. Does anyone have a better suggestion?

[mydona]

Long line ganion for a break away strap. Wire will conduct electricity between 2 dissimilar metals. Old timers use to use leather. I use a 64 soft lay doubled. and I also use a 2nd, a little longer double strap as a back up. P.S. the distance between your wire and lead will change your line voltage

[carojae]

Halibut gangion, spreader bars, some swivels have a snap on them that will straighten out and release your lead. Some guys take one of the strands of wire out near the lead to weaken only that part of the wire.
There's a new type of parachute cord that a lot of fisherman are favoring; all I can tell you about that is it is orange in color.

Personally I use gangion. Also, I make sure my rigging on the pole is extra stout and hope for the best when I hang up.

Tip: Use gangion but use 2 gangions. Make the second one longer so the first will brake and then the second will be there to save the lead if the gangion just wore out or was maybe cut on the hangup.

ps: I was posting this message and see Mydona already answered you while I was doing a preview. Bonus!

[Vermillion]

Awesome! Thanks guys. Good info about the gangion and about the voltage between dissimilar metals. That makes sense, I should have thought of that.

[Salty]

Vermillion,
Great question and timely too as I was just down hooking up the latest evolution of my wire to my leads. The previous comments are right on.
I started with leather as that was what my Dad used. I moved to gangions back in the 80's as that was simpler. In the early 90's I moved to orange chaffing line about a quarter inch. Then I started running my lead spoon snap on my lead strap. Unfortunately the spreader bar I had sliding on the chaffing line chaffed it and I had to keep an alert eye on it and change it regularly. Not too big a problem as even the plastic absorbs salt and becomes more and more conductive over time which is not what you want. So you change them out every week or so anyway.
Then I substituted kevlar 1/8 inch for the orange chaffing. Worked great, but also chaffed where the spreader bar was resting above the knot.

Recently I have developed a new system that I really like. I take that 1/8 inch kevlar braided line and tie one end into a big swivel and the other end into two brass spreader bars. Then I put a loop in the middle with just a simple overhand knot. Into the loop I snap my lead spoon or bottom leader. I connect the swivel to the wire with a c-clip chain link connector. I connect the spreader bars to the lead with another c-clip. (Pictured)

The weak link is the spreader bars. I just lost a lead last week and the system worked perfectly. The bow hung, the tag broke at the oregon leader, the lead broke off at the spreader bars and I didn't even need to replace the kevlar strap. Just tied into two new spreader bars, grabbed a lead and c-clipped it on.

If anyone is interested I can post a series of pictures onto the pictures thread showing the set -up previous to the knot and loop for the bottom leader.

I hadn't thought about it when I was hooking it up but the drag, and water disturbance is much less this way than with the chaffing strips or two gangions.

[Abundance]

I've always used gangions myself. I haven't lost a lead in a long time, but I have hooked a fair number of sea anemones recently. I even caught a sea cucumber last year, and a sea urchin this last trip so you can imagine there were times that I was glad I had breaking straps, even if the weren't ultimately used. I remember my first year of fishing, I put most of my income back into buying a pile of leads for each trip. I know a diver who was going to try to make a summer retrieving leads from humps around here. I asked him if he would give me a discount for my past services. He just gave me a funny look. I wouldn't mind seeing an example or two of Mr. Jordans setup. Its kind of hard to picture it, for me at least.

[Vermillion]

That is good stuff. Right now I am rigging up Gangion. I would like to see the pictures of your setup to see another option.

[JYDPDX]

If anyone was wondering, doubled gangion may be a little too strong depending on what kind of performance you are looking for. I was using a complete loop of halibut gangion with a longer backup. Some people had made the observation that it was too strong which I shrugged at. I got "lucky" for a very long time and did not lose a lead. 2+ years. Now that's not to say I didn't hit bottom through that spell because that happens a lot fishing kings and I am not afraid to use 60s while towing 20 fa of wire.

After hanging up a couple weeks ago and losing 16 fa of wire and several spreads I have since gone to single gangion for breaking strap. But thats because i just got skittish with my crappy wire and couldnt afford to lose anymore, ill go back to doubling. My wire at the time was highly dilapidated and there were odd circumstances at play. i had a doughnut slip through the fair lead (due to kelp patch) and in the process payout an extra 3 or 4 fa of wire, plenty enough to send the lead to the bottom with slack. I also lost a 50 the same week with no damage to the wire.

My theory however is that having "too strong" of breaking straps may have saved me tons of money on lead and gained me lots of extra fishing time over the past few years. You don't want them just plopping off from minimal contact. You definitely want to have skookum rigging, tag lines with their own sacrificial straps and a block set up that's not going to kill someone when you hang up. Helps to have wire in good shape too.

There's nothing worse to me in a fishing day than losing momentum dealing with lost or tangled gear, especially if the bite is on.

Also interested to see Eric's setup. Eliminating more water turbulence in front of the lead spread can't hurt anything.

[Drew]

I use a single piece of the thickest gangion they have at murrays ( I think it says 600 something # breaking strength ) with a longer backup piece. It seems to work pretty well for me. I slammed bottom pretty hard quite a few times last year in 6 months of fishing and I only lost 2 leads. I also pulled up a line where the first piece of gangion broke and it was hanging by the second, at least 2 times during the season.

I view a lost lead at the breaking strap as a success in a way, since it shows your breaking strap is doing it's job. A lost line is bad enough, but you'll lose even more time to a broken pole, it's a lot better to lose that $120 lead...

[yak2you2]

Gangion material needs to be replaced often, even if it doesn't look like it. Salt, wear and tear, and sunlight take their toll. It gets brittle just sitting on deck. I swung a ball out last year on old gangion, hit the break, and watched the ball head for the bottom.

[mydona]

Double #64 works great. I watched a whale catch an inside heavy while in the pit! All I could do was run out from under hay rack and out of the pit. Standing at mid ship I watched the progression of things falling out of the sky. Wire must have wrapped around a fluke, 1st the pole braking strap went at the bottom of the tag line. (I like to make this my weakest link. At times, it gives a guy a few slack fms of time to stop the boat before losing a lead) Next went 30 fms of wire to the core. Then the strap to the block in the hay rake with the boat at a scary list to starboard. I'm not sure when the lead came off but I did get all my wire back and the lead swivel with some braking strap attached. 6 wire beads were stripped down to the eye and the snaps were like a ball of yarn twisted into a impressive knot. Not 1 flasher was left and only 2 spoons, 1 with a little piece of whale hide. The wire was stressed to the point it had to be replaced but I still had a pole, a hay rake, a boat, and I can say that I now know what a whale feels like to the touch. In closing all I can say is imagine this happening to you and how and where you'll want things braking as the sky is falling. Also, think about the wire slicing your arm as the blocks are braking out of the hay rake. Put a safety chain under the block in the hay rake over your head!! I'd rather lose the hay rack than an arm.

[Salty]

Well folks my latest idea does not seem to be working out as putting a loop in the Kevlar strap does not allow the leader to swivel on it and it ends up tangled wrapped around the lead. The knot loop in the Kevlar also slipped on the 60 so you couldn't easily remove the snap.
The Kevlar strap with the spreader bar weak links still working well.

Mydona's story right on. I have been hit by whales twice in the years I have trolled. On was similar to Mydona. Amazing how good they/we are at avoiding each other.
The pictures are in the iPhone and I have not figured out uploading from this device to the forum yet.