wire line

[Fish Tales]

did a search already, couldn't find what i needed so here goes. I mostly fish in the Ches. bay and near shore trolling for striper blues and spanish. Once in a while we will go offshore. I have heard alot of chatter about wire lineing, but have never done it, and no one knows how to or won't say round here. I do have a couple of 113s and roller rods that are supposed to be for wire. How do you go about rigging up ect. and even what wire. I saw some in Cabelas and it goes up to 48?lbs, what poundage should I use, do I have to put on a backing, what knot ect. I also saw a copper wire too. And last but not least, Is it worth the trouble to even fool with.
Thanks in advance

woops forgat to add, we use heavy mojo's and in line planers

[HOLWACHAGOT]

Use power pro. Wire is a PITA. 80# Power Pro will do what you need done.
Holwachagot

[Split Bill]

When fishing the ches bay we would use multi-stranded wire line (I believe 60lb test). We use a fairly flexible roller-guide rod and a 320gti type reel. Put a bead or 1/4 oz egg sinker between your line and the crimp to the swivel.
Typical technique is to attach your swivel to a 3-way. On one end of the dropper put something heavy (we use a mojo or a 20 oz sinker). This should be on about 3 ft of line. Off the back of the 3-way, put about 15-20 feet of leader to your trailing bait. Often a sassy shad, bucktail or spoon.
When fishing we like to bounce the mojo or weight off the bottom every few seconds. If you are fishing around the bridge tunel or structure we replace the mojo with a cheaper weight and use 20 pound test so that of you get hung up you only lose the weight, not the entire rig and wireline.
Holwachagot is correct that the wire can be replaced with braid if you are more comfortable using that. You can debate which is better, but both are effective.
Also, to answer some of your questions:
That 48 lb wire is probably fine if it is stranded (I don't like the single strand).
I use 50-lb mono as backing (because I already have it) and 113-type reels. It is best if your reel has a guide to spread the wire evenly on the spool. If you use power-pro this isn't as big a deal.
Is it worth it? Heck yeah! People don't fish wire because it's fun...the stuff catches. If done effectively, it is a different type of fishing, but very worth it.
Good luck,
Ed

[reelreturn]

Cabela's or offshore angler sells lead core line which might be the ticket for you

[PLAN 9]

I grew up wire line fishing with some of the people that started it where I am from (L.I.). We used to fish bucktails, arms (umbrella rigs), and bunker spoons with it. We used 40-50 lb MONEL only, it is softer and kinked less. Fished 300ft on 113H reels with 50-60lb backing. Our rods were either cut down MB1083M, or SB1363M Lamiglas blanks with either a wood or aluminum butt, the rods I started with had carbaloy guides but as the new products came around we started to use silicon carbide and even hardloy (remember MONEL).
The wire we attached to the backing with a 75lb swivel and the same at the other end to a 15'-20' 50lb test leader for umbrellas and spoons, shorter for bucktails. The 75lb test swivels were so they would go through the tip. We used all ring guides, never rollers, usually the heavy duty turbo style. The wire we marked by haywire twisting telephone wire inline at 200ft, 250ft, 275ft. The wire was done so you could control the depth of the lure being worked, the wire sinks about 1' for every 10' of wire out. If we were bucktailing we used Jigmasters loaded with 30lb MONEL, 150ft, backed by 50lb mono. I learned how to get the correct boat speed by trolling bunker spoons, it was the way the tip bounced that we figured on as the correct speed, usually 1.5-2.5kts. Spoons were fished on "outrodders" or some other way to keep the rods out to the side, almost parallel to the water, the spoon rods were 8-8 1/2' long and limber with a parobolic action. Umbrella rods were somewhat stiffer and fished from the rod holders, you could run three at a time if you pulled a center one with a drail inline, and maybe just a large tube. If using a drail you got about 1' per ounce sink in addition to the wire. Bucktailing we used to hold the rod by the butt and point the tip to the water and jig the rod by pushing the butt back and pulling the tip foward.

Now I can say that I have not tried power pro for this type of fishing so it may work better. We used to use mono with drails and umbrellas at times (like trolling the banks of the channels <10' deep), but that was to find the fish so we could cast to them. We used MONEL exclusively because we found that it stood up the best, trolled the best, and it was the most forgiving. The biggest key to wire line is not to get slack in it, we ALWAYS kept the boat moving even when reeling in lines and fighting fish, that keeps the kinks to a minimum. In the 80's and early 90's I could not wait until my birthday Oct. 10th as that was the start of the fall wirelining, spoons til November then arms. I stopped fishing wire when the flyfishing bug bit me hard and I have fished for stripers with the fly exclusively (that is me PERSONALLY, my clients can fish them however they want), since 1993.

Again there has probably been alot of advancements since I hung up my wire rods (some have other uses, the spoon rods collect dust), that is just the way I was taught and caught ALOT of stripers that way.

If you have any questions you can PM me and I will try to help you out in any way I can.

Tight lines!
Captain Jim Sabella

[jimbo62]

how do you use braid in place of wire and get it to the right depths? I like the idea of using braid as it means I can use keep one set of rods on the boat for multiple purposes instead of keeping separate wire line set-ups. It would also be a hell of a lot easier reeling in braid than wire. But how do you get to the right depth?
the nice thing about wire is that you know that for every ten feet or so, you go about a foot down. I can read the bottom and tell someone to let out, or take in line to target a specific depth.
can you get that with braid?

(if so, I am sold.)

Jim

[reelfisher]

i know that some braid has color stripes every yard and chages color every ten yards

[Capt. kapoc]

how do you use braid in place of wire and get it to the right depths? I like the idea of using braid as it means I can use keep one set of rods on the boat for multiple purposes instead of keeping separate wire line set-ups. It would also be a hell of a lot easier reeling in braid than wire. But how do you get to the right depth?
the nice thing about wire is that you know that for every ten feet or so, you go about a foot down. I can read the bottom and tell someone to let out, or take in line to target a specific depth.
can you get that with braid?

(if so, I am sold.)
Jim

If your wondering about the markings saltesta makes a multi colored line. As far as fishing braid i use it on my mojo rods which are in my flatline positions and usally stay damn near strait down because the braid cuts the water and doesn't float like mono. In my opinion it is well worth it and keeps me from having to use wire (i hate wire) other than needing to know how much to reel we usally let the mate know by reel 3 cranks ( 4:1) to bring it up 12 feet just as an example.

[jimbo62]

So how much line do you need to let out to get down about 25-30 feet?

thanks

Jim