If it wasn’t for bad luck……

I had the worst luck ever today. I motored all the way across a big lake this morning in the wind and started to put decoys out. While putting them out the starter in my motor went out. Once I got it going and started throwing decoys again I found that my decoy weights where breaking off when I threw the decoys out. I use the tangle free line and it seemed to break in random spots. Anyone have this issue with this line? While I was putting my gang rig out with a dozen super magnum blue bill decoys my rig broke. Also made from the tangle free line. I lost all my weights on one end and had to quick cut some off of other decoys to make it work. When I finally was set up I shot like crap. Some days you can’t win.
DT

Are you using actual Tangle Free brand line? This is the green line with a solid core. Other tangle free lines are hollow. I found with the imitation stuff when it gets cold it gets brittle and actually breaks with ease.

I’m using the black tangle free. It has a solid core. Is the green better?
DT

We use the green stuff that is hollow and it does break pretty easy when cold

Any day in the duck blind is better than a day at work. I could shoot a hole in the boat and still be happier than my best day working

Any birds around? Ice on the lakes/ponds? I am heading to the cabin near Fergus this weekend to chase em

Fergus area should be good this weekend….just drove through there yesterday evening on the way home from Devils Lake lots of corn coming down and we saw geese in a couple different fields and mallards going down in a different one….sad to say it looked more promising than a lot of what we saw in ND.

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I use the tangle free line and it seemed to break in random spots. Anyone have this issue with this line?

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We used to use this stuff a long time ago when we used to have a blind on a lake and leave decoys out all season. We used to loose alot of decoys and used to go walk the shoreline to pick them up. Always attributed it to the muskrats, but maybe they were breaking as well

Long ago we switched to using the boat to get to various places and mainly gang rigs with just singles to fill in and break up geometry. We use some form of Halibut line my brother found from a commercial fishing company, stuff is awesome! However, as we expanded and starting building more, even small diameter nylon rope works great even in freezing conditions (throw some spray paint on it to dull it down and use the waterproof gloves when wrapping up).

I hear ya on the fact that some days you just cant catch a break

Smallest diameter Paracord maybe?
DT

I don’t wanna confuse any one as I am not sure what is actually considered paracord. The really good long line stuff we use looks like a small diameter nylon rope, but the interior of the line is extremely tightly woven and gives the cord memory. You can hold the rope out in front of you, grab and kink the line in the middle and the line will only fall back down about 50%. This has been great as it greatly reduces the amount of tangles (tangles will drive a guy crazy in the dark). As I mentioned, we have a few gang rigs now that do have just a small diameter nylon rope from the hardware store (bought in bulk, like 1/8″ or 3/16″ diameter I think; spray paint helps to tighten the line up with memory but not alot). The bad part of just the generic nylon rope is that it is much more pliable and tangles easier and it holds alot more water when wrapping up the mainline around a decoy body.

I am fuzy on the details as we bought all our good gang rig stuff around 10 years ago. I do recall it was from a commercial fishing supply company in Alaska and they were advertised as Halibut fishing supplies. The line was advertised as a mainline for the long line rigs. We have never had to replace any components in ~10 years, line hardly has a nik in it, clips are great. At that point if Doctari long lines had made it inland from the east coast, no one here had any idea; and honestly I kick my self every time I buy another half or dozen divers and pay those prices for snaps

I looked quick and couldn’t find the main line. If you want to PM me I would be willing to atleast mail you a small piece of it so you know what I am talking about or look for. The clips we use are the A2 model on the bottom left of page 5 in the pdf below
http://www.lfsinc.com/commericalfishinggear/Longline_catalog.pdf

Interesting…I have been using the plain old camo braid line for years and as long as the decoys cords get wrapped on snug I’ve had very few issues with tangles and I’ve never lost a deke to line breakage.

I like the tangle free because I don’t have to wrap them. I just throw them in the bag or the bottom of the boat and never have issues with tangles. Maybe I bought an off brand and didn’t realize it.
DT

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I like the tangle free because I don’t have to wrap them. I just throw them in the bag or the bottom of the boat and never have issues with tangles. Maybe I bought an off brand and didn’t realize it.
DT

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I’m thinking we are talking about two totally different styles of rigging here. When we used the tangle free stuff, we had a permanent blind and set all decoys as singles; left them out season long with concrete cup weights (Herters super mags inwhich the line was not up for this task). The rigging gear I am talking about as being the good stuff is what we use from the boat and is for setting a larger spread (green head gear; 8 dozen divers, 5 dozen puddlers, 4 1/2 dozen big foot floaters) from the boat in short order on big water. We rigged all this stuff for late season and the worst weather/best late season hunting. All our decoys have a loop tied to a snap which is then clipped to a mainline that is then weighted on each end by an old 5lb window weight; each main line is then systematically assembled and dropped out the front of the boat and placed in long lines in different angles (much like you would see on sea duck video) – single decoys fill in the voids and break up geometry. When picking up, a single decoy is snapped on the end of the main line and then it is wrapped around the body of the decoy (some of them 200ft long or better).

I guess when you mentioned diver decoys, and knowing there is alot of big water around Alex, I just assumed you were gang rigging/long lining. Only huntable numbers of divers we see around here before the smaller water (<500 acres) is froze solid are ringbills and not many of them.

As far as single decoys and hunting smaller water, we have a another much smaller set of decoys we have tied up with tangle free and the small lead weights. Those have never broken or been lost.

We are talking about the same thing. I used the tangle free line to make my gang rig. I thought it would hold up better. I also use it for my singles. Looking at the Rig’em Right website their gang line is 1/4″ polyester solid braid line. I’ll send you a PM later with some of the big waters I hunt around here.
DT