Thread: Amount of Line

How do you guys measure your line when your trying to fish a certain depth? For example, if I want to fish 10' deep, what is a good way to know I have 10' of line out?

Your rod length. Depends on what type of presentation you're doing, but you can tape your rod at 2 ft. intervals to tell you exactly how much line you have out. You can strip line from the reel, let's say 2 ft. at a time, for depths longer than your rod. Of course, you want to add in the length from the water's surface to the rod tip.

Thanks sky hawk..... that makes good sense!!

Originally Posted by sky hawk

Your rod length. Depends on what type of presentation you're doing, but you can tape your rod at 2 ft. intervals to tell you exactly how much line you have out. You can strip line from the reel, let's say 2 ft. at a time, for depths longer than your rod. Of course, you want to add in the length from the water's surface to the rod tip.

Good reply here. No need to complicate it.

I back-wind one turn from my rod tip an measure how much line my reel lets out with one revolution. then I count revolutions! I use really small reels for titelining an they let out 18 inches per back-wind. 2 is 3ft, 4 is 6 ft, 6 is 9 ft, then add in yur leader length. most of my titelining is less than 5t ft deep so I don't do any real hard math!LOL!

Why not premeasure your line and mark it with a black magic marker. Use a color that you can see at the rod tip and allow the distance from rod tip to water. You can use different colors to mark different depths. Maybe one of those rubber bobber stops would work at where you want to mark your line. I can't count and fish at the same time.

Seen guys with marks on the side or top of their boats too. I have some line counter reels I use at times, but the most common 2 methods I've used is: rod length, and counting my jig/bait down to the bottom, ex. If it takes 5 secs to fall 20' , you'd know it was falling 4'/sec.

If you use braided line, a mark made with a black magic marker every 5 feet works very well for me. It is also useful for long-lining too. ---B

when I tight line I make short, med,& long cast in my set, whichever I get the fish on is what I go with,when they slow down I reset and go again,I don't worry that much about it, It,s fishing