Longliners question

For those of you that longline. My old boat had 6 holders in front and 4 in back with 1 seat in front and 1 in back that let 2 people pull at once. My current boat has an 8 holder set up in front. And is capable of running 2 seats up front. I am either going to just pull with 8 rods in front, set up to run 6 and 4 again like my old boat, or mount my extra bases in back and run 8 there. My tm is a terrova so I can run from either spot just fine. My question is do yall have a preference for keeping all rods in front, back, or having both? Thanks as always.

Great question. Hope someone with some knowledge of longlining will answer for all of us.

I am by no means an expert but when i longline i run 4 out the back and 2 up front. One of the two rods up front on each side is usually a down rod with the other rod identical to the one's in back. Remember everybody has there own way of doing it. Find a system that works for you. You can longline out the back,front, back and front. There really is no wrong way of doing it. I will say this last thing though. When longlining out the front you will have to make longer slower turns than if you were longlining out the back.Hope i helped you out some.

I prefer front and back at the same time. Some days the bite is better out the back of the boat and some day it is better out the front of the boat. Just my $.02.

Check out bernard williams article on main page about longlining.

I run 1 12 foot pole of each side up front and 4 out the back when two of us are fishing Weiss. There is a pole limit on Weiss of 3 per angler. At Guntersville I fish with 6 out the back as long as the green carp are not too thick. It seems to me the poles out the back do a little better than those off the front.

When pulling jigs we typically run 4 from the front (sometimes 6) and 4 from the back. The main reason is that it spreads us out (not sitting side by side) and gives us more room and works for us. When running 4 and 4, I have an 18' and 14' out each side of the front and a 12' and 8' out each side of the back. It takes a little coordination and working together because if you are using the same size jig you can't have alot of line out on the front and short lines running out the back. This will give you troubles when you go to turn and lines cross. My dad hated this method when I first started it but now it is his favorite method!

1 person I fish 6 up front three out each side. If two people I'll have six up front and four to six out the back. Sometimes when by myself I'll fish six up front and experiment with different rids out the back and change colors and jig size on them.

If I am by my self I fish 3 out the front if someone is with me we fish 3 front and 3 off the back and I use 2 14footers and a 8 footer in front and 2- 12 and 1- 10 off of the back, I stagger the rods where we are covering about 35 foot swath on a pass.I wished I was like Scott and have some 18 footers. Most of the lakes I fish you can only fish 3 rods per person and that would be the Coosa chain of lakes.

We go 8 on the back 4 on each side keeping the 12' [poles on the outside on both sides and have 8 ft poles on the inside. My buddys boat is so wide we sit in chairs and man 4 rods each. The terra Nova trolling motor makes all this possible.

Thanks for the inputs fellas. My old set up was 14, 11, 9 each side front and fanned 4 6.5 footers out back to cover the whole area. I think I will set up for front and back again mostly for the reason crappiechappy said. We have days where the bite is better off front and side and sometimes better on back. Think you may miss the front bite if ya just keep back goin.

Yep, I like to fish both front and back when there are 2 of us in the boat. I can fish 8 up front and 6 out the back. Will flex those numbers depending on the fish and wind conditions.