need your advice

Was trolling some sloughs yeaterday and hooked up with a few eyes. Here is the problem. I was using fireline and seemed to lose a number of fish. Lure came back with pieces of mouth on the hook. Do you guys like to use mono for this type of fishing or am I doing somethinmg wrong? First year using this kind of line for me. thanks-John

Loosen up the drag and use a long rod with a very soft tip. I use 8’6″ rods, and have the drag so loose on my Diawa sealines that a whole bunch of line gets spooled out when I get hit. When you hook up, throw the motor into neutral and slowly (s*l*o*w*l*y) work that fish into the net. No pumping of the rod, just a slow steady retrieve.

That is great advice Jason for everyone. Thanks.

not really a need to set the hook either……..

Thanks Mike. The 2 big fish from my Pepin report from last week were caught using fireline (actually, spiderwire stealth, but a superline nevertheless) and long rods, so it can be done! The no-stretch aspect of superlines is great for feeling the bait work and for feeling the bite, but it also demands greater attention to detail in getting fish to the boat.

I am usually in the minority when this issue comes up, but I do not like Fireline at all. I tried it for different applications, but I found that it didn’t stand up well to stress and did not come off the spool well when casting, and while the sensitivity was nice (definitely better than mono), it did not make up the other problems I had with it.

Relating to your question, I had trouble adjusting my drag, hooksets, and fish-playing to the no-stretch quality of Fireline. This last point is more of a personal preference issue than a criticism of Fireline, but I prefer the give-and-take stretch of mono for trolling and casting crankbaits.

I do like superbraids like PowerPro for vertical jigging and casting big baits for esox, as well as trolling live bait in lakes where snags are not a major problem. For me, they bring the pluses of Fireline in those situations without the negatives.

Superlines do not stretch. As several guys have said use a long pole with lots of action. Some companies have brought back special fiberglass poles just for pulling cranks with superline. There has to be some give when the fish hits the crank. I use Spiderwire Stealth but would be using Spiderwire Fusion if they still made it but I haven’t seen it around for a couple years. Fusion was pretty much the same thing as Fireline only better. Fireline loses it’s coating too-fast for my liking whereas Fusion did not.

I am not an advocate for Super Mono. I’ve got lots of reasons why but the main one is that any abrasion will cause the line to break. It is hard to beat Trilene for applications where I fish with mono.

Eyehunter

Ditto To Brook Trout. Drag, Long Poles and even (no pumping)slow retrieve. Superlines are all I use for Trolling. The sensitivity, diameter of line and the depth they can reach are the 3 major reasons.

I troll P2 quite a bit and all I use is 10 lb power pro with 7 ft med/light action rods. Never had a problem and rarely loose fish. Then agian this is in the spring and they are hammering the baits!!! Like you said Rob, I love the advantage of getting your baits down with the small diameter!!! I was running my baits 60 feet back and hammering the bottom in 12fow+!! This allows me to keep control of where my baits are at a whole lot better that running 100+ ft of line. Dito on the loose drag
I like power pro myself the best. It does not wear on your equipment as bad and wont borrow itself in the spool if you need to yank out a snag! But I know others that have great success with fireline so I cant say to many bad things about it

I run fireline on my bouncer rods and was using it for casting cranks but after awhile it dont cast well so I have switched to Power Pro on the one rod I cast with we”ll see how that holds up. I love the castability of Power Pro for Muskies hoping its the same on my walleye crank rod.

I still troll 10# Trilene Big Game though for my crankbait trolling.

When I troll I always use a 7′ medium/light rod and Power Pro line. When they are not real aggressive you tend to lose more than when they are hammering baits. Like the others have said, with the braided line, don’t set the hook, just reel in with steady pressure.

well, thanks for the reply guys. I know what I was doing wrong, all of the above. Stiff rod, setting the hook, and cranking like it was mono. Surprised I got any fish to the boat. I will give your tips a shot. Now I hope the fish are still there, if not I guess I will have to spend some more time to try and find them. that will make my wife happy. lol–thanks again–John

You can update the hooks to triple grips on some of your favorite cranks.