Turning without tangles

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Siskiyous
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Turning without tangles

Post by Siskiyous »

I have tied up the Cheryl M and am processing the lessons of my first (half) season.

One of the mysteries I am dealing with is how to make her turn as sharp as the competition (you guys) without tangling gear.

I see some vessels run two "deeps" or lines without pigs, as well as two lines trailing pigs. Do the use spreader boards. Is 1/16th line better for turning than 5/16th?

I admit I got a little frustrated with experimenting with some suggestions i received during the season.

Does anyone know if experiment shave been done on cannonball shapes other than round?

I hope you all had productive seasons.
JKD
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Re: Turning without tangles

Post by JKD »

Without knowing your boat, the length of your poles, whether you are using bow poles, and etc., it is difficult to offer any meaningful recommendations to prevent tangling gear. It would be helpful to know which of your lines are tangling, and if it is always the same tangle situation. Trolling tangles occur for relatively obvious reasons. For example - when making your turns your trolling wires may be positioned too close together (not enough "spread"), your over-all leader lengths may be too long for the application, the leads on the "deeps" (or "heavies") may not be heavy enough to prevent blow-back into your following gear (float-bags or "pigs"), or tide or currents are moving your gear too close together.

During a turn the wire alignment of your gear "collapses" and the spacing changes so that wires can and will get closer together. This is the situation that you must anticipate and arrange the gear so that there remains enough "spread" and leaders of one wire cannot come into contact with other wires.

I don't have bow poles on my current troller, I use the standard 2-pole arrangement and float-bags. I use 5/64 wire. Generally, I use the heaviest leads [60#] I can handle on my "heavy" lines and I position the tag lines for these wires about 4 feet from the ends of my poles. I maintain the separation between my heavies and my float-bag wires when they are all deployed by using lighter leads [40#-50#] on the float-bag wires, and employing float-bags to drag these wire lines some distance out behind the boat while fishing. The float-bag wires' taglines are at the tips of my poles. As a matter of preference, I use shorter leaders on my heavies' wires and longer leaders on my float-bag wires. You will find different combinations (arrangements) of weights of leads, length of leaders and positions of taglines on different vessels, but the point to remember is that if you do not maintain an adequate "spread" between your wires you will continue to experience tangles.

One trick used by a number of trollers that I know is to let out some slack on the wires on the inside of your turn to maintain the separation (spread) between the port and starboard wires. This helps somewhat when you are making tighter turns, but you have to remember to remove this slack once you complete the turn or the slack could allow kinks to form in your wires between the taglines and the wire blocks.

Hopefully this information will be of some assistance to you with figuring-out a solution to your gear tangle problems.
Siskiyous
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Re: Turning without tangles

Post by Siskiyous »

Error
Last edited by Siskiyous on Mon Oct 28, 2013 11:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
Siskiyous
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Re: Turning without tangles

Post by Siskiyous »

I use a spread setup similar to what you describe. 5/16th line, three attachments to the outside of the poles. The only real difference was that when I got the boat a 42 footer with a 10 foot beam, the heavies were the inside lines, and used spreader boards about 6 fathoms down. In experimenting I changed that.

At this point I run the heavies on the outside tips, and I can visualize now why that may not be a good idea. The reason for this change was I lost four sets of spreader doors, and ran out of time to make more.

I see boats running two lines down without floats, and can not understand how they do it. In those instances they are not using bow poles nor snootter poles.

One boat owner showed me a way to attach spreader doors at the cannon balls. He ran two lines without floats, and three with one set of floats. I watched him turn on a dime off of Bandon in the last couple days of the season. When I used them my lines twisted.

I experimented with snooter poles. I liked their sensitivity to bites. The ones I scrounged up were too short, and one had a weak spot, so when it bent I put them up for further development this winter.

I do slacken lines during turns, and have had instances of them becoming snarled between the blocks and the line from the poles.

Most of the tangles were on the inside gear during turns.

Towards the end of the season I just ran two sets of gear on each side, and even just one set when in a fleet and in shallow water. That way I could manuever.

It seems I just could never develop a system I could run with any kind of speed without tangles.

My gear is generally a two fathom line from clip to a large flasher, and then a 28 inch leader to a hootcie.
JKD
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Re: Turning without tangles

Post by JKD »

It sounds like you are running more than 4 wires - something I am not inclined to do with my present boat. Here in SE we have to stick to 4 wires unless we venture north of Cape Spencer. Because I had 3-spool gurdies I tried 6 wires up by Yakutat for a time on my previous boat, a 56-foot steel rig. In that case I ran my usual 4 wires set up like I described above (except with 60# leads on the original float-bag lines) and then added another float-bag to a wire with a 35# lead to each pole and ran these float-bags back behind the original set.

We found that we didn't get to the second float-bag wires as often as we would like because the original 4 were so much faster to pull and re-set when the fish were really biting. This experiment didn't gain me enough extra fish to offset the bother of having to pull-in and stack my original float-bag line so I could pull in the 35# wire and clean the silvers off and re-set it without creating tangles. There is a lot of current running to the west up in that area during larger tide cycles. In front of Yakutat Bay when you were trolling toward the west, the current would push the wires on the starboard side over close to the boat. I abandoned the 6-line experiment and replaced my 2 fathom-marked wire with 1.5 fathom-marked wire and shorter spoon leaders and boosted my production with the original 4 wires.

I have not tried spreader boards but I know people without bow poles or snooters who use them and say they work well enough that they don't use float-bags on their tip lines at all. I have seen stainless steel planers attached to leads on some boats but don't know anything about their rate of success at keeping wires separated. It sounds like you have some experimenting to do. Good luck.
Salty
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Re: Turning without tangles

Post by Salty »

I have used inside deeps with planers on the tips, float bags, and bow poles. Unless you are fishing 50 fathoms or more then bow poles are the way to go. More fun, feed each other better, and quicker to run.

If you are running inside deeps then it is a good idea to add a fathom or so to your tag on the tip so it swings back and out a bit more.

Inside deeps in tide can turn into a nightmare. Tangling three lines of 25 spreads a line in North Inian Pass twice in one afternoon ended my inside deep fishing.
lone eagle
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Re: Turning without tangles

Post by lone eagle »

I noticed the fish were concentrated and guys were making short tacks....lots of turns and doing it on a dime. Try slowing way down and letting the leads sink close to verticle. maybe even stacking a float or deep so you only have 3 lines out in the turn. First year with a new boat and my poles were rigged different. The deeps off the tips and the floats off the 4th spring (5' inside) The floats were shear types . This arrangement produced no tangles all year and I'm sold on it. Also I ran my deeps no deeper than my floats so they didn't hang back and snag. I used long spreads on all lines too. If you use snooters or inside deeps then I believe you gotta use 60lb lead and no deeper than 20fath.
Salty
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Re: Turning without tangles

Post by Salty »

Lone eagle makes several good points. Particularly on running shallower leads on your tips and not setting your heavy or bow lines deeper than your tip or float lines. I still manage to tangle lines, particularly when fishing deep.
Siskiyous
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Re: Turning without tangles

Post by Siskiyous »

So you would set your deepest lines off of a float? That is different from what I had been doing. I always ran my deepest lines with 60 pound lead and no float.
lone eagle
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Re: Turning without tangles

Post by lone eagle »

I set my deepest lines on the floats and use 45 pounds. my deeps are usually shallower and sometimes the same. I know some guys run them a little deeper sometimes. I use a 50 pound lead and a 60 pound lead. The 5/64 line I use on my deeps has more drag too, but stands up to abuse so much better than the 1/8, I'm tough on equipment so i'm going to switch to 5/64 all around. I can remove the cannonball swivels to mitigate the drag. One thing that may help is a block on the center of the stern that you can clip your floatline into when your hauling in. This guides the path of the float to the boat a few more feet inside of the deeps
Salty
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Re: Turning without tangles

Post by Salty »

Siskiyous,
Lone Eagle has great advice in my opinion. Yes, I often set my floats or tip lines deeper because they are lighter leads and they aren't going to drag back and foul a line behind them. Fishing the bows at 24 and the tips at 30 works well for me on some drags. You got to be careful on the turns though if you are running a 25 fathom edge with this combo because the inside tip line will sink down to the bottom if you turn on this edge. I usually run 60's on the bows and 35's on the tips. Winter fishing with floats I run 60's and 50's.
Sometimes I just run the same depth on all four lines just to make it all easier, particularly with crew.
paul
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Re: Turning without tangles

Post by paul »

Are you turning while hauling your float bags? That's what I had the most problems with when I started.
Thorne Isl.
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Re: Turning without tangles

Post by Thorne Isl. »

Siskiyous wrote:So you would set your deepest lines off of a float? That is different from what I had been doing. I always ran my deepest lines with 60 pound lead and no float.

Siskiyous, I think you found your problem..
Kelper
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Re: Turning without tangles

Post by Kelper »

Lets say you are fishing a relatively straight drag with a few zigs and zags, 26fa. You run 40's on your floats, and 50's for your heavies. Would your run your floats at 26fa, and the heavies at 22 or 24?
Salty
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Re: Turning without tangles

Post by Salty »

Floats 26, heavies 24.
Siskiyous
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Re: Turning without tangles

Post by Siskiyous »

Yes I think you guys identified my problem too. I did most of my fishing in the 30's early and 40's in August and September. Only got in shallow l\in July off Brookings and September off Bandon.

I thought the heavy leads were for deep fishing, now I see they are to keep the unfloated lines forward.

Thank you guys.
Siskiyous
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Re: Turning without tangles

Post by Siskiyous »

Thank you for condensing all of that. You guys have been a great help.
jephh
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Re: Turning without tangles

Post by jephh »

Is this the setup as described or am I way off?
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Crawfish
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Re: Turning without tangles

Post by Crawfish »

The biggest trick to keep from having line tangles is to keep the bow lines at a lesser angle than the tips, and keep the tips at a lesser angle than the dogs. Whether you do this by running more stops on the floats with a lighter lead or by using more flashers it does not matter. What matters is line angle. A proven method is to run your bow lines with 50's then put your tips with 35's a couple of stops over with some more flashers. Do the same with the dogs and you should not have to many problems. I can normally run this setup side current so strong it has lays the floats on their sides without tangles. But then you have days that things get messed up no matter what.
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