Hi all, with plenty of interest and great ideas on the last post on longlines thought I'd share a few of my tips and  knowledge from 25 years of longlining before i took up boat fishing. Firstly the crimp section on most lines are far to close together to fish properly. I discovered crimping your own line with 5-10 metre gaps between crimps the catch rate went way up.You cover more seabed with your hooks and a fish fighting and shaking to get off is a good distance from the next hook allowing that one to fish as well. I never used Tianawa Jap setline hooks. Because of there small size and amount of bite offs. Mustard make a longline hook with a long shank call an Easybaiter. I ran 12/0's. Never get bite offs and always hooked in Jaw. A secret using these, cut a big long skinny bait 60-70 cm long and just hang it through hook once. The fish picks up the long bait starts running with it trying to swallow along the 10 metre run between crimps hits one its all over! hook sets. Another hint is threading a clear plastic tube over trace line to prevent tangles, so trace sits good. Way back 20 or so years ago i was the first in N.Z to do this and use to make and send hundreds of traces out to people with kontikis and boat longlines. I had lengths of wood with kontiki manufacturer on it to get the right length for traceboard. These days all the firms have the tubing option. Bait something tuff, Freshly filleted kahawai not bled, or large fresh arrow squid were my favourites. I had some amazing catches using these methods from shore with my kites, and on one occasion had to take a trailor  down to beach to take the fish home! From memory got 14 Snapper and 7 over 20 lbs from a 25 hook set. Now some of you will think release them but unfortunately big fish being dragged in from 1-2 k's out, don't survive once released. Have put back many and have seen others release them but next morning always dead on beach getting eaten by seagulls. They all went to good homes!! Other photo is the biggest Snap i ever got using same methods on a longline. Its the sort of size I'm after on me boat to give the measure comp a bit of a shakeup!! Cheers. 

Some good stuff Geoff! I was talking about longlines today and how to hook the baits up. Understanding how those longline hooks work is an important thing to understand if using cicrcle hooks for line fishing. I like the idea of the crimps further apart, great idea.

Lethal wrote: as normal, some excellent fish Geoff, interesting on released snapper, my theory as well, the amount of stress can not be seen... interesting the hooks and the gap between hooks, friend liked to put a saltwater fly on every second hook but kept the hooks close 1 or 2 mtrs apart, more than often he had fish on the fly with no bait, i certainly would prefer your way. I have found Lethal the bigger the snap the less chance it has to survive upon releasing once handled by humans after being hooked. One would think its the other way round with a big fish being stronger. Have read even holding a big Snap up out of water for photo before releasing puts a huge amount of stress on its organs dropping its survival rate. This has happened with my brother and i once with a whopper. All my releasing i do now with big Snaps at side of  boat, fish still in water, dehook without touching fish and off they go. Few times though have taken pic on measure mat for comp before releasing. I try and do this as quickly as possible to limit the stress. Thanks.....

i get the impression Capt A we are crossing horns here some place,

A couple comments
 Sure larger than the 2. 2 m between hooks will cover greater area with better results....and yeah bit more applicable for shore based long lines...
 But longer lays means more interference/ restrictions of others around u....and as far as boat based goes, its NOT about the BIG catch.. its about getting a feed when fishing is hard, and or prospecting areas see if its working yet.

With all due respect..
My old man put tubes over traces on his kontiki....he died over 40yrs ago and the kontiki was before the plastic bag fad starting in the early... back then was a couple galved down pipes( anyone rem when they where still around) rigged up into a catamaran configuration and a square sail rigging... and again he set his hooks closer but positioned into his target area....those days no 4x4s or bikes to haul big catches back.
Oh and go to bait back then was mullet and trev, sometimes squid, but that was expensive.

As to rules.. there is reality. the limit is say 7 per ppl... 3 ppl on board.. chances are they have dropped a couple fishing lines and already have a couple in the bin. 
Does that mean the 2 pulling the line up, the 3rd will it on their bum? or maybe clean hooks as they come in or manoeuvre the boat or unhook the catch ?
So one of the 3 has 2 in the bin.. he can have 5 off the LL....the other 2 can have  total 14.....end of the day in practical terms it still comes down to 7 per person for each that has dropped a line in the water.

As applies to land based.. its just not clear...

i dont think its exceeding the Limit Geoff its more like what you read into it,

Yes, snapper are not included in the general finfish bag, so kahawai, Tarakihi etc are not included, so you can have your seven snapper, as well as up to twenty other finfish. Pretty generous bags really. And I know, that is not including kingfish and hapuku, you can add that mixed five fish bag as well.....

If there are four folks on the boat Smudge? What then?

Capt Asparagus wrote: If there are four folks on the boat Smudge? What then?