I know that the standard is 6lb but every one of my rods is rigged with 8lb.
Does anyone longline with 8lb and a heavier head? I know that 1/16 is somewhat the standard but would a little more weight and 8lb test suffice?
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I know that the standard is 6lb but every one of my rods is rigged with 8lb.
Does anyone longline with 8lb and a heavier head? I know that 1/16 is somewhat the standard but would a little more weight and 8lb test suffice?
Question is, are you catching any? The key is the presentation. Jig must be in the water column above the crappie. You can achieve this by larger jig or by adding split shot. You will have to play with this each day you go out until you consitantly start catching fish. Some days you are highter in the water column, but as the sun gets higher, they seem to go deeper.
Another way to get info, is to do a search on the subject.
Good fishing.
Chuck
My search told me that everyone uses 6lb test and 1/16 to 1/32 oz jigs, hence the new question. :D
I was hoping that someone out there had tried 8lb and could steer me toward a starting point.
This will be my first foray into longlining. I'm just trying to ramp my learning curve to help rule equipment out of the equation if I'm not catching any fish, so that I can focus on technique. Because of my work schedule, I don't get to put in nearly as much time on the water to play around with setup as I would like.
There's 2 more ways to get the jig up or down... 1. Speed control. Faster higher, slower lower. 2. Body size. Bigger profile bodies will have more drag & ride highter. Smaller, less drag and deeper running. I would think it could be done. Just gonna have to experiment.
I fished a couple of weeks ago with a buddy of mine, we longlined tandem 1/24oz jigs. I had Mr. Crappie Hi-viz 8lb line on his rods on the back of the boat, and I ran 6lb test on my rigs from the front. I ended up catching quite a few more fish than him, gotta figure it had to do with the 8lb test since we were running several of the same jig colors. Believe my jigs where maybe just running a little deeper.
I think 8lb is fine, just run a little heavier jig if the fish are a little deeper in the water column. You might just experiment and run a couple with 6lb and couple with 8lb.
Good Luck!
We tried it this afternoon in the 20+mph winds and I guess it was a success even though we didn't catch a fish.. we never tangled the lines, either. :D
Today was not a good day to test the waters of longlining. The wind was blowing us too fast without the drift sock and we were drifting too slowly with the sock (not to mention it is next to impossible to fine tune maneuver the boat with the sock out).
We longlined for a couple of hours for zero fish and then flogged some banks that are usually prime to get out of the wind until almost dark. Nothing to show for the bank fishing but largemouth, yellow bass and one bluegill.
The lake level is jumping like crazy. There is so much trash floating in the water, it was a real hindrance also. The debris (probably mostly leaves) was showing on the depth finder from top to bottom. The water temp. was down a couple of degrees as well, even late in the afternoon.
Wow, glad to see I didn't miss anything this week. The wife and I are planning on coming down next Friday and Saturday. Hope things stabilize and the bite picks up some by then.
I almost only long line troll. I only use 6 pound test. Why, because thats what I was told to do, and I catch fish. As far as jig weight, I used to buy 1/16, 1/24, and 1/32. That ends up costing a lot of money when you go through the amount of jigs I go through. (you can't catch fish unless you put the jig in places where you get hung up) Now I only order 1/32 ounce jigs and simply add tiny weights to get me to 1/16 ounce. As far as speed goes, slow, slower, and slowest is what I was taught. At times it looks like I am hardly moving. The main thing is, do not troll under the crappie because they will never go down for a bait, but will go up. Good luck.