MY PLANER ROD BRIDLE AND PLANER

[Capt.LaRon30]

new here and searched before posting but I can not locate this video. Any help would be appreciated.

[clt_capt]

Welcome aboard. See if this helps... http://www.sportfishermen.com/board/...-up-46250.html

[Reelscreamer]

HMMMM this is a head scratcher! Maybe my sons first wahoo at 11 mile reef or my first Blue Marlin at Rota Banks Hmmmmm. Ok is was late May of 2007 and Sully, Aarron, Jay and I were in the MWR fishing tournament. We decided to go up North to Rota Banks to which only one of us had fished up there but I have heard a lot of good things about it! We arrived and the scenery was amazing! There must have been 1,000 birds diving and crashing an splashing around we knew we had to be in heaven. After pulling in a few Bonitas we took a 12/0 hook and hooked one of the live Bonitas and threw it back in the water. One end was a 4 lbs Bonita and on the other end was a Penn International 70VSM. Within a few seconds the 70 went crazy, line peeling off drag was screaming pole was doubled over. After approximately 45 minutes of fighting what surfaced on the other end of our line???????? One BIG ASS reef shark We thought for sure we had a big blue on the other end! So we cut the line and sent the shark on and went back to trolling gettin the spread set out just perfect and probably about 10 minutes laters my 12/0 went to screaming like a banshee!!!! I looked back at the long line and to my amazement it is the first time I have ever seen this Mr blue was struting his stuff tail dancing and all! I was in such a state that I almost forgot to reel the slack out of the line! The fight took approximately 30 minutes and we had a 160lbs blue marlin in the boat. As we trolled back towards the marina we had a second marlin come accross our spread and he/she was much bigger than the one we had in the boat but as luck would have it he/she spit the hook to see another fight! We went on to win the first ever fishing tournament I entered and to catch my first Bonita and Marlin in the same day made it that much sweeter!

Jeremy

[Capt.LaRon30]

Welcome aboard. See if this helps... http://www.sportfishermen.com/board/...-up-46250.html

Many thanks! What a great site here! Only wish I had bumped into it a few years ago. I have a few questions about this system of planer fishing that I have not seen answered yet, however im sure a few have been asked and answered but a search has not shown me the answers I seek.
While I catch a good amount of hoos each year, I am excited to try this system and get an edge on tournament competition down here this year!!

First I would like pros or cons to this system compared to what most of us in my area (Ponce Inlet/Daytona Beach Florida) use while planer fishing, other than the obvious (there is no hand line needed). Here, I use a simple in-line planer system. Crowder big game stand up rod with 50W spooled with mono and about 100yards of 150lb power pro pulling a #8 old salty.
2. During tournament fishing where in-line planers are not allowed, is this still considered in-line?
3. Where does the 31" for the bridal come from, Is it the only length that works? Does this number also require an exact length of wire and clip from each end of the planer if so what is that length? Does this number only work for a certain size planer as I have never even purchased anything larger than a #8?
4. Have you or can you successfully pull 2 of these planer systems at once?
5. Why bent butt? I have Bent butt rods however I still choose use the stand up as It is seems easier for my crew to see the stand up pop during a bite as there is not much bend in the bent butt while running an in-line.

[clt_capt]

I'll see if I can answer from my experience running the Sniper for the last couple of years..

First I would like pros or cons to this system compared to what most of us in my area (Ponce Inlet/Daytona Beach Florida) use while planer fishing, other than the obvious (there is no hand line needed). Here, I use a simple in-line planer system. Crowder big game stand up rod with 50W spooled with mono and about 100yards of 150lb power pro pulling a #8 old salty.
I use a #16 or #24 planer most of the time - a good bit more depth than a #8. The biggest advantage to my mind is that you can get the bait way away from the planer with the long leader - and can still wind on the leader after removing the planer.
2. During tournament fishing where in-line planers are not allowed, is this still considered in-line?
Most would still consider it inline
3. Where does the 31" for the bridal come from, Is it the only length that works? the 31" is pretty much the shortest length that allows the planer to fully trip when there is a tug on the end of the line, or when you are manually tripping it. You can easily run a bit longer, but there is more turbulence caused by the excess bridle in the water. I haven't run a #8, but don't see why it wouldn't work. The key is that the length of the bridle has to be slightly longer that the extended length of the combined planer and clips.
4. Have you or can you successfully pull 2 of these planer systems at once? I have run 2 - usually with 2 different sized planers to cover different depths. I usually do not though.
5. Why bent butt? I have Bent butt rods however I still choose use the stand up as It is seems easier for my crew to see the stand up pop during a bite as there is not much bend in the bent butt while running an in-line. The larger planers put a lot of stress on the rod. The bent butt will put the rod in a much less stressful position. You will see the bent butt trip with a big planer!

Sea Draggin also posted an alternate bridle system that works for him - the key to this is to find out what works for you.

[Capt.LaRon30]

clt_capt, Thanks for the response, im very appreciative of it!

[giantfan]

Here is one of my most memorible trips to date.

It was the summer of 2002 I believe.

This was the second season of having my first “offshore” boat (to me at the time anyway) It was a 2000 Aquasport Osprey center console with a single 225 Fict on the back. I kept the boat in Jersey City NJ which is a 19 mile run to get to the tip of Sandy Hook.

We had been making quite a few shark trips that year running to the Glory Hole which if memory serves me right was around 80 miles or so. Our typical trip was to leave the dock on Fri afternoon after work and make it out to the fishing grounds before dark… get set up and drift all night. We were having a pretty productive season and caught a lot of nice fish.

This particular trip, the crew consisted of the owner of the company I worked for (new to saltwater fishing the previous season) and two other guys, one was a regular on the boat (one of my best friends at the time) and had plenty of offshore experience and the other one I had never fished with before but had assured us that he was a seasoned shark fishermen and talked the talk…

Well we ended up getting a late start due to the so called experienced shark fishermen showing up 2 hours late. Typical Fri night at the marina… a bunch of guys hanging around talking about fishing while only a few boats are actually getting ready to go. This night was a little different as we were the only boat heading offshore. The weather was calling for scattered thunderstorms and for a front coming thru from the west on Saturday evening. We figured that with the radar offshore we would be able to run around the thunderstorms and if we headed back in at first light on Saturday morning we would be back to the dock by the time the front came thru.

Everyone at the marina was telling us we were crazy to be heading out with the thunderstorms that we had lingering around… but I’m sure most of you can relate to thinking that we know better than everyone else and they are just a bunch of wimps. WERE GOING!!!!

We leave the dock and pick up some bluefish at 17 fathoms on the way out. Had to run for a little bit in the dark due to the late start but we didn’t have a problem with that since we had radar. As we were running I kept seeing something out of the corner of my eye just off the bow. Figured that it was just my eyes playing tricks on me and must be the spray coming off the bow. After about 25 min of seeing this we took a pee stop and to my amazement there were about 10 porpoise jumping all around the boat. It seemed like they were pissed that we stopped and wanted to keep playing…. It was pretty cool to say the least.

Finally we get to the Glory Hole and turn on the lights, Holy crap… I had never seen water like this in the Glory Hole before. It was gin clear, I clearly remember the feeling of “oh boy…. We’re a long way from home”

We get set up and the slick is out. We proceeded to have one of the best nights of shark fishing that I have ever had. We had 5 makos up to 200 lbs and a ton of huge bluedogs. Not to mention the fish that we missed due to knot failure and angler error on the part of the “Shark fishermen” I will save the rest of that story for another time.

All night long we were watching lightning flash to the west of us. We kept an eye on the radar and nothing is showing up. At around 4:00 am the flashes seemed to be getting closer. At the same time we notice that the weather station plays that lovely screeching sound that we all dread hearing offshore “ severe thunderstorm warning…. Seek safe harbor” GREAT! We pack everything up and start heading in. I punch in the numbers for the tip of sandy hook and the course puts us directly into the heart of the lightning strikes. It’s still not showing up on my radar so I figure that I will give it a shot and when we see it on the radar we will determine what direction to head. As we are heading in we hit a temp drop that felt like it was 20 degrees. Ok… I’m getting a little scared at this point so I stop the boat and make sure everything is strapped down and ready for some seas. At this point I can see a distinct line on the radar that is so dense it looks like the shore line. We are still way to far from shore to pick up land so we knew it was the front. I punched in Manasquan inlet to the south, to see if that would help us from going right into the middle of the lightning strikes but it didn’t really help much so I decided to just tuff it out and head for the hook.

Out of nowhere we can see a wall of white... it looked like a fog bank off in the distance. Hold on boys here we go. We hit that line and the winds went from calm to who the hell knows! There was horizontal foam flying thru the air and the seas went from nothing to 8-10 ft in an instant. I had all I could do to keep the bow into the wind, I had my canvas dodger on the bow and as soon as I came over the crest of a wave the wind would grab that dodger and try to spin me around. I had one guy watching forward… one on the radar… and I was doing all I could do watching the compass an keeping the bow into the seas. Shark man was up in the dodger in the fetal position praying. (he later claimed that he slept thru the whole thing) RIGHT…. That wind sounded like a freight train running us over.

After about 45 min of pure hell…. We broke thru the other side of the squall line and daylight was starting to break thru. The seas never got any better (I think the actually got worse as there were a couple of 12-14 ft waves mixed in the bunch every now and then to keep us on our toes) but at least the barrage of lightning stopped. It was the worst thing I have ever been in. I couldn’t believe the amount of lightning strikes there were around us, every couple of seconds it seemed.

We made it back to the dock safe and sound after at least 10 hours of running in from the Glory hole. We were actually going so slow due to the sea state that we put out a Clark spoon and caught a couple of albies on the way in. That was the longest ride I have ever been on. My heels hurt so bad from the pounding we took, my feet weren’t right for a week.

From what I understand there were waterspouts and all kinds of carnage out there that night. The fishermen actually had an article about that night a couple of weeks later. From what I understand there were a couple of much bigger boats that got in trouble that night. We were lucky… that’s for sure.

The scariest thing that I remember from that trip (and think of every time we encounter weather from that point on) is that none of us ever put on a life vest!! That is about the dumbest thing I have ever done. I should have insisted as soon as I felt that temp drop on our way in that everybody put on their vests. I will never make that mistake again. I guess I wasn’t thinking about failure at the time but should have known that you never know what can happen.

Thanks for the video Marty... I watch it every now and again to refresh my memory of the rigging class.

I just got an International 80 and am going to purchase one of your sniper rods. What pound test braid should I put on the reel and about how many yards will I need to fill it.