Longlining Questions?

Having a slow Monday at the office so enjoyed this 19 page read!

Just wrapped up my first year of longlining and its become a family addiction. Absolutely amazing method for fishing these Central Florida salad bowl lakes. My current set up is side-by-side fishing off the back (2011 Tracker 190) with 2 4-rod Cumberland 360s angled for spread. However, between my daughters and nephews, its time to upgrade. I just ordered a trolling rack to place across the back and will wrap up the back sides with 2x2 holders and relocate the 2x4s to the front so I will be completely set up to fish from 1 to 4 longliners comfortably. Will post a picture when its rigged up.

First year was almost exclusively RoadRunners (1/16 & 1/32) and Kalin's curly tails with Crappie Nibbles and it was very successful. Best tip I learned from the folks here is to make regular small S-turns to raise and lower jigs. Noticed it helps with the reaction bites and also for fine tuning the overall speed. This coming season I am going to expand the arsenal to include round heads, paintless heads, clip-on spinners, Sliders, and Bobby Garland products. Thought about double rigs, but that thought passed quick! I will go with the occasional minnow-tipped when the weather cools and they require less maintenance.

Only other thing I am considering and am interested in some feedback on is if anyone has set up a fish finder at the back of the boat. The neck does wear out from all the turning towards the console when I'm sitting back there. I have an HB 898 at the console and was thinking of just adding an 800 series on the back for simple sonar/gps networking. Thoughts?

I say go for it with the 800. Like the rod rack idea. Got mine setup similar to that. Now I can run 16 rods from all directions. But only if I got help.

I have run a depth finder on the back of my boat for many many years before the boat I'm now using. They are 'GREAT' for letting you see what is coming before your lines hit a brush pile. You will not regret installing a unit on the back.

I added a 320 Eagle and switched it out for a 480 Eagle (I already had these) and I got alot of enterference from both units so I'm back to turning my head. :(

most times if you got interference it is coming from the big motor or if you are running both fishfinders at the same time to solve this on your boat you will need a spliter or a filter even to close to another boat running a fishfinder or the trolling motor can cause interference to fix the problem run your ff and lights bulge pumps and livewell on a solo battery you can get spliters from humming bird and lowrance

Why do y'all use such light jig heads when longlining? Will 1/8 or 1/4 not work?

Try keeping an 1/8 or 1/4 ounce jig off the bottom while trolling in water 10 foot or less. You'd have to have a boat speed of 5MPH or more. If the fish are in deep water, the heavier weights may be used to some degree.

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Originally Posted by crapAlicous

Why do y'all use such light jig heads when longlining? Will 1/8 or 1/4 not work?

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Oh okay. Just curious

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Originally Posted by crapAlicous

Why do y'all use such light jig heads when longlining? Will 1/8 or 1/4 not work?

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I will change over to 1/8 and at times 1/4 in the summer months but 1/16 is the best size here most of the time. I do run 1/16 & 1/8 together ( 4 rods with each) when looking for the crappie sometimes but we know close where the crappie are on must trips and the 1/16 works great.

When longlining works best is when the crappie are on the move. And that's usually early spring until early summer and late fall into cold winter. That's usually when the fish are moving from deep waters into more shallower waters chasing bait and that's where the 1/16th and smaller jigs come into play. Depending on your personal LLing setup tells which weight jig to use. 1/32nd jigs are generally used to fish 5' deep or so and the 1/16ths can get you down to around 8' deep. Now is where you use variables such as adding splitshots or double jig rigging or even moving up to heavier jigs such as the 1/8ths to get even deeper. As far as the 1/4th jigheads.....I've never used 'em. I could only guess that with my setup they'd run 20'-25' deep and when crappie are that deep usually they aint chasing jigs all that much IMO. If I were still chasing the crappie then (hot summer months) I'd probably switch over to spider rigging using meat under my rods.