Reducing number of snags while Straylining .
Printed From: The Fishing Website
Category: Saltwater Fishing
Forum Name: Landbased & Surfcasting
Forum Description: From rocks or beaches, here's the place for the landbased fishos to share information
URL: https://www.fishing.net.nz/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=51685
Printed Date: 11 Jun 2026 at 10:17pm
Topic: Reducing number of snags while Straylining .
Posted By: ThomasW
Subject: Reducing number of snags while Straylining .
Date Posted: 14 Mar 2010 at 10:17am
|
Is there any tips or tricks to help reduce the number of Snags when Stray-lining over foul ground? Recently started rock fishing and have a couple of productive points but they have a large appetite for terminal tackle. I basically snell a circle hooks (6/0 to 8/0) onto 1.5m of either 40 or 80lb trace material which I tie onto my mainline with a 1/4 or 1/2oz ball sinker above the hook. I pre-tie all of my traces to save time. I cast out, lower the drag and wait. When no fish take the bait, I tighten the drag, lift the rod high as possible and wind in fast to try and keep the hook above the reef. Still lose plenty of gear. |
Replies:
Posted By: Ces
Date Posted: 14 Mar 2010 at 10:22am
| don't use any sinkers, that way baits drift slower to the bottom, and less snags |
Posted By: JK
Date Posted: 14 Mar 2010 at 10:48am
|
Yeah no sinkers is the way to go - let the weight of the bait control the sink rate and with a well balanced rod and reel combo you'll be suprised at the distance you can still cast.
If I do have to use sinkers due to wind or current I'll only usually go 1/8 or 1/4 oz at most. ------------- LedgeNZ LBG |
Posted By: ThomasW
Date Posted: 14 Mar 2010 at 11:23am
| Would trail no sinkers, I can get sufficient distance casting whole pilchards but need a little more weight for casting anchovies. |
Posted By: Ritual Groove Meister
Date Posted: 14 Mar 2010 at 11:32am
|
Use no sinkers and keep your bait alive off the bottom. If fishing with casting braid your casts will go twice as far and will not be effected by the wind when unweighted straylining. This is an issue I have found when stray lining as any little bit of breeze and it blows a bow in your mainline causing the bait to end up back in the wash. Braid will sit on top of the water and be unaffected. A lot of guys on here hate braid for LB. You just need to use long traces of windon fluoro for abrasion resistance plus a bit of invisibility factor. Another option is to hook up your pilly from the mid section with trace running out to tail. Have a sliding small ball sinker run down to your pilly on the opposite side that the hook is on. This way the hook stays on the upside of the bait. Finish off with a couple of half hitch loops aroud the tail of pilly and you have a good casting outfit. |
Posted By: ThomasW
Date Posted: 14 Mar 2010 at 11:52am
|
After a 6hr session on the rocks straylining, how many hooks would you expect to lose? I lost 12, that was fishing two rods, one using big baits the other small. So 1 hook per hour per rod. |
Posted By: one leg
Date Posted: 14 Mar 2010 at 12:07pm
|
part of your problem is you when fishing a bad rocky or kelpy area keep in touch with the line and bait by just leaving it unatended it will sink in to kelp or rocks and be lost ,a quick wind now and then will lift it off the bottom (walking the bait),may have to throw out a few times more often but lose rate should be down ,most fishers would lose 3-4 hooks over a day .ALSO add more anchoveys and tie on too give more weight to help cast . ------------- woman who say they are equal to men ,show lack of Ambition . |
Posted By: JK
Date Posted: 14 Mar 2010 at 12:43pm
|
Barry is spot on.
In terrain like that you are best off fishing one rod and holding it the whole time whilst a bait is in the water. You really need to keep in touch with the bait. If you hook a fish in terrain like that and the rod is in the rod holder you will most likely be reefed anyway. ------------- LedgeNZ LBG |
Posted By: tas-tackle
Date Posted: 14 Mar 2010 at 1:02pm
|
I like to use No sinkers as well.. I use large baits with the big rod (distance) and the 10 footer for fishing my feet... I use small spoon sinkers if I have to use a sinker... A big heave and wind like hell..the spoon sinker "planes" up to the surface... tend to loose less weights by using tea"spoon" sinkers... ------------- http://postimage.org/" rel="nofollow">  http://www.tas-tackle.co.nz |
Posted By: DMC
Date Posted: 15 Mar 2010 at 2:34pm
|
And a slightly different approach is to learn the terrain better. Stick on snorkel and mask and go for a wander around your potential casting zone. Even in foul terrain there will often be a sandy or less treacherous spots where you can aim your casts at. Generally, I always take a surfcaster plus regular rock rods to newer spots; the surfcaster so I can get max cast distance if I need, or even for closer in the high angle of an upright surfcaster means less line close to the weed/rocks. Good fun battling a kingi or big snaps on the surfcaster too...
|
Posted By: shoby
Date Posted: 15 Mar 2010 at 9:21pm
Loosing tackle is part of the fun mate Usually such areas are very productive in terms of fishing. If it is a complete sh##t bottom, i use circle hooks. They tend to reduce the rate of loosing hooks. Definitely NO SINKER. |
Posted By: Big H
Date Posted: 15 Mar 2010 at 9:36pm
| You can get big wet flys for trout which have a 'weed gaurd' which is usually some stiff light mono which run from the eye of the hook to the point. Seems to work well I dont see why it couldn't be applied to salt water? |
Posted By: jake10
Date Posted: 15 Mar 2010 at 9:49pm
| you may laugh , but i was watching these Korean dudes , they were on a landbased safari over on the barrier , they were doing really well off the bricks ... noticed that they put those little red and white floats down on their leaders to keep their bait off the bottom and give them the split second of reaction time to hook up , never tried it myself but watched them catch a hell of a lot of snapper this way , they were certainly no slouches and hauled some great snapper in. |
Posted By: ThomasW
Date Posted: 15 Mar 2010 at 10:07pm
| I own a bunch of foam floats, going to install a few different lengths away from the hook to see if it makes a difference. |
Posted By: Kiwicaster
Date Posted: 15 Mar 2010 at 10:08pm
Was thinking about that and I guess you could use the tag end of the snell. |
Big H wrote:Posted By: Finatic
Date Posted: 15 Mar 2010 at 10:25pm
|
What has been said already. But also Google 'pulley rig'. I've been using a rig like this for distance casting when I've wanted to get just out beyond the foul in a couple of spots. Good rig for when the fish are only taking small baits and you don't want to have to use a whole bonito head or similar. Been using it for just over a month now and when fishing over foul have yet to get snagged up *touch wood*. Only thing I snagged was a bumhole breacher in a kayak  ------------- What's the cheapest type of meat? Dear balls. They're under a buck. |
Posted By: ThomasW
Date Posted: 15 Mar 2010 at 10:48pm
| I use pulley rigs all the time while Surfcasting or fishing off beaches, Just tied 7 new ones before dinner tonight. Thought that the big old wary Snappers would be a bit reluctant to take one, might give it a go on my second bait rod. |
Posted By: Finatic
Date Posted: 15 Mar 2010 at 11:03pm
|
I've been catching more fish on the pulley rig than I used to on my single hook droppers when fishing off the beaches. Very happy with it and it casts a lot easier and further. I have to thank Chad for his article in Fishing Coast to Coast for switching me to this rig.
------------- What's the cheapest type of meat? Dear balls. They're under a buck. |
Posted By: ThomasW
Date Posted: 15 Mar 2010 at 11:09pm
|
Going to do a three way trial next time I am rock fishing in the sounds. 1) Strayline with no sinker. 2) Strayline with no sinker, Plus float. 3) Pulley Rig with BOS (Maybe with float) See if it reduces the number of Snags while maintaining my catch rate. |
Posted By: JoshW
Date Posted: 16 Mar 2010 at 9:28am
| the other option is to not put any gear in the water and just burley the fish to your feet and catch em of the rod tip. |
Posted By: fisher
Date Posted: 16 Mar 2010 at 9:33am
|
Josh do you find that nearly always works for you? A lot of stealth involved i guess right? Do you use different berely to attract different fish? I normally think of berely as attracting small baitfish, which the larger fish then feed on. Except for small snapper maybe which would go for actual bits of berely floating around. Cheers |
Posted By: JoshW
Date Posted: 16 Mar 2010 at 6:09pm
yep works nearly always in the right kinda spot, very effective in those shallow snag filled strayline spots. mostly just a snap and trev catching technique. The stealth thing is essential and patience too. do it wrong you might get look at a snap if your lucky but he wont hang around, do it right and it'll hang around till you feel like catch'n it. It's an effective way to target big fish because you pick them out from the small ones and don't end up disturbing the water catching smaller ones and unwanteds. sight fishing for snapper has become the norm for us these days rather than the exception. Don't like burley bags in the water prefer to mush up burley by hand and feed it in, will quite happily sit on a rock solo and mush up bits of tuna and pille, feed em for up to 2 hours or so before putting a bait in the water. Pannies often show up first, if i feel I can do better i leave em be and wait for something better to come along Do you use different berely to attract different fish? only if targeting trevs, will try and go for a shellfish burley if pos but not essential. |
Posted By: fisher
Date Posted: 16 Mar 2010 at 10:28pm
|
well JK was talking about using pillie/bonito for KY and kina/mussel for snaps (is that the right way round JK?) Salmon sems to attract just about everything Craig was on about this method of fishing in a recent fishing news article right? I intend trying it when the situation and conditions are right. I suppose any wind roughing up the water surface makes the whole thing difficult as you can't the the fish. Do you use salt water fly? if you chuck a pillie in on the end of a hook you'll scare the crap out of the fish you've been enticing in? |
Posted By: ThomasW
Date Posted: 16 Mar 2010 at 10:30pm
| That method removes the surprise of whats going to be on the end of the hook. |
Posted By: JK
Date Posted: 16 Mar 2010 at 10:33pm
Almost fisher - pillie/bonito for the kings. Can use anything/nothing for KY  ------------- LedgeNZ LBG |
Posted By: JoshW
Date Posted: 17 Mar 2010 at 8:34am
| Fisher, wind doesn't help but is fishable as long you pick your spot, you only need a small window to see in, polaroid sunnies essential. The oldman has written a fair bit about it in the past. I will use fly on occasion but mostly bait as long you don't slam it in the water you wont spook them, they usually get a little bit less cautious, after you keep them round for a while, have had 20lb+ fish in the past sticking there heads out of the water to nail a kahawai fillet bait being dragged along the surface. |
Posted By: gizzyboy
Date Posted: 17 Mar 2010 at 4:16pm
|
?what do you look 4 in a spot u want 2 try this.eg do want the sun behind u so u can see into water easyer but a bit of a bank behind u so your shadow doesnt put them off like a seagull does to maumau,and i supose some elevation to see into the water would make it easyer. how often do u get snapper to do this.Ive seen a few but not every time.?How deeper water and how much curent and fouls around when u do this.Im realy keen 2 learn more. |
Posted By: letsgetem
Date Posted: 17 Mar 2010 at 6:01pm
| What I've tried that seemed to work ok - although I didnt catch any decent fish - a float with a hole thru it - a swivel about 1m from the hook, then the float running above the swivel, then about 2m further up the main line a stopper knot (a uni tied in a short piece of mono). A light sinker on the swivel (just enough weight to be able to cast it out). The stopper knot can be shifted along the line easily. The hook/bait can sink until the float is tiopped by the stopper knot. I inend to keep trying it and refine it. Lot of fun - I like hearing what others are doing. |
Posted By: ThomasW
Date Posted: 17 Mar 2010 at 11:03pm
|
Went fishing tonight, and tried a few things. Float + hook seemed to work... But the float might have been to good. Need to experiment more with placement. Trailed a pulley rig for a while, had one minor snag which I freed. Eventually hooked a underwater bulldozers which I gave up on after a long fight. Did not want the hassle of dealing with a large ray on the rocks plus I was wasting the change of light windows playing tag of wall. Used sinkerless strayline rigs for the most part and only got 1 snag over the 2 or so hours of fishing. A massive improvement. |
Posted By: JoshW
Date Posted: 18 Mar 2010 at 10:38am
can do it at any spot realy, but plenty of cover is good, guts, overhangs bommies and kelp. yea all those things you mention help, bit of shad and height for spotting is a bonus. pretty much get snapper to do this on every trip if the conditions allow (i.e not a massive swell and huge wash zone at your feet) and you act right. we usally have fish over 5kilos up on at least more than half off attempts. Its definitely not the only the only way to fish, (I still fire baits to the horizon or back of the burley trail in the right circumstances), but it can beat the usual methods hands down some days and realy effective for picking out better qaulity fish. water depth isnt really an issue 2m is enough but so is 10m. the oldmans written lots about it various fishing news editions especially the late 08 issues.  two snapper are visible in this pic, one is 12.6kg the other about 8 they hung around for about 15mins before we had ago at them. scenes like are this are not just one offs!
|
Posted By: Rusky
Date Posted: 18 Mar 2010 at 10:47am
Wicked pic! 
|
Posted By: Jimm
Date Posted: 18 Mar 2010 at 5:30pm
|
what are the beads on the pulley rig for mate?
|
Posted By: Bungel_
Date Posted: 18 Mar 2010 at 5:57pm
|
protecting the knots, act as a stopper. Also a bit of colour seems to help out. :)
------------- here fishy, fishy fishy..... |