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What line for trotting ?

Iain Tutt

Iain Tutt

Senior Member
Going to try out trotting with a pin. Never had much luck using a pin before, so when the river seasons starts i want to give it one last try before i decide if i sell the reel or not. So treat me as a newbie on this topic.

Rods that i will probably be using are Avons 1lb, 1.25lb, 1.5lb. I may even try an old ledger rod with a screw in quiver tip.

Question 1. floating or sinking line. I usually load all my reels with Sensor or Maxim line. I class these as sinking lines. so maybe not the best for trotting.

Question 2. Again i usually use 6 and 8lb lines. Should i go lower?

Question 3. Should i go straight through to the hook or use a lower hook link.

I will be targeting Chub up to 5/6lb and Barbel up to around 13lb. This will be on smallish rivers like the West Sussex River Rother. Depth wise about 4/5 feet.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and hopefully i can learn another fishing skill.
 
Thank you, Paul both very informative and answered all my questions. Big thumbs up.
 
Iain...to answer your questions :
1/.. a floating line, of your choice...mono, or braid (not fluoro obviously).
2/.. if you're targeting 13lb barbel then using anything much less than 8lb hook-length doesn't sound advisable, especially if you're using it below (much less forgiving) braid mainline.
3/.. use a hook-length, don't go straight through...ever.
IMHO
Terry
 
Mike Hodgkiss said:
Just out of curiosity Terry , why not straight through ?
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Cus if you're going to get snapped off then it's better that it happens well below the float, and not towards the rod tip. A barbel trailing 6 inches of line is bad enough, but having to tow 20m or so of it sounds nightmare-ish..to me.
 
Fair enough . When float fishing straight through if I get snagged and have to pull for a break or a fish too powerful for the line is hooked , the line always parts where one of the shot has been pinched on the line as obviously pinching shot on the line however carefully always creates a weak point , so this has the same effect as a lower BS hook link .
 
Another slant is when using a lower breaking strain hook link is that you create weakness in your rig. I regularly trot for Barbel and multiple catches are on the cards and this weakness is not for me and will always fish straight through. However it's not a snaggy area and that's my reasoning also. If the bottom was poor I may rethink this. Line has to be matchteam as it's faultless.
 
IMHO... all rigs, by nature, will have a weakest point, and this could easily be above the float if no hook link is used. Line can get damaged whilst transporting made-up rods, during tackling up, or during casting.. especially if it gets tangled around the line guides. I think for someone who's just starting to long trot, especially with the expectation of at least hooking double figure barbel, then the rig's 'weakest spot' being below the float is a good idea. If I was going to fish with the same line straight through to the hook I'd loop-to-loop the last 6-8" to create such a 'weakest link'.
Re. shot. Most of my summer long trotting is done with self cocking wagglers and the only weight I put on the line will be a blob of putty, maybe on a float-stop 6-12" from the hook. When in the past I have used shot I've gone for the rugby ball shaped ones, and then pinched those onto silicone tubing on my line.
Finally, I do like using fluorocarbon hooklinks... but I loath casting the stuff when used as main-line. To me, braid main and fluoro hook-link is an ace 'combo'.
ATBA
 
More or less what Jon said.Interesting regarding straight though or a lower hook link. most of my Barbel and Chub are straight through lines. Where i fish gets very weedy with many dead branches on the deck. If the bed was quite snag free, then i would use a lower rated hook link.
 
Jon Frisby said:
Another slant is when using a lower breaking strain hook link is that you create weakness in your rig. I regularly trot for Barbel and multiple catches are on the cards and this weakness is not for me and will always fish straight through. However it's not a snaggy area and that's my reasoning also. If the bottom was poor I may rethink this. Line has to be matchteam as it's faultless.
Click to expand...

I'm a great fan of Silstar Matchteam too Jon .. I love the stuff. Seems VERY silky smooth, and 'beds-in' beautifully during knot tying. But, in my experience, it's not very forgiving if you don't get your knots totally right i.e. it can 'slip' through/out of a knot much more easily than other monos. I've had barbel to double figures (trotting) with it, but I only use as a hook-length (6.6lb)
I did use it as my mainline once when still water tench fishing. It drove me crazy : with the surface drift I needed it to sink, but there was no way it was going to :)
Anyways...each to their own eh .... but (fish)safety first I reckon.
ATBA
 
Frankly I'm astonished that presumably experienced anglers would ever consider using a straight through set up for any sort of fishing, ledgering or floatfishing. Anything less than a 30% difference(preferably more) between the mainline and the hooklink is downright irresponsible both in terms of fish welfare and wildlife in general. Ten yards of line, or more, or less, tethered to a snag on the bottom or in a tree can entangle all sorts of birds, ducks, bats or Swans, create a new larger underwater snag with weed, twigs, branches and other debris becoming entangled and could quite easily lead to a club losing its water or angling being banned on a stretch if the Anti's were to use it as ammunition.
Imagine a Swan or several ducks tethered to a length of line on a public access water, the press could have a field day.
Using hooklinks stronger than the mainline is even more dangerous but that's another discussion.
Rant over, I'll do a seperate post about choice of trotting line.
 
Snags can appear at any time, especially in rivers. Likewise accidents can happen, tangle, line caught round a rod top, clutch jams, line catches on bale arm. Built in weak point, lost fish with a few inches of line and a hook in its mouth, not a major problem.
50 yards of line out, no weak point, major problem.
 
Paul Collins said:
Snags can appear at any time, especially in rivers. Likewise accidents can happen, tangle, line caught round a rod top, clutch jams, line catches on bale arm. Built in weak point, lost fish with a few inches of line and a hook in its mouth, not a major problem.
50 yards of line out, no weak point, major problem.
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Given the examples you state here Paul, why should a lighter hook link be considered? The line would break at a point nowhere the hooklink..if there was one.
 
Pulling for a break or playing a fish, any line will break at its weakest point when under enough pressure. Safest method is to ensure that that is as close to the hook as possible.
Those examples were instances where a break could become inevitable whilst playing a powerful fish.
 
Interesting thread . In terms of my approach I always fish straight through float fishing or ledgering and I always use nylon monofilament . I have explained my weakest point approach already , i.e. the line will break with a fish too powerful for the line at one of the points between the hook and the float where the shot has been pinched on .When ledgering my weak point is two fold , 1- I stop the running ledger with a ledger stop which again pinches the line and creates the weak spot / break point .2- If the ledger weight is snagged the weak pint is also the clip on swivel which I attach to the ledger ,under extreme load these pull apart leaving the ledger in the snag . As to using lower BS hook lengths , this will probably work equally as well as long as you are confident about the actual amount of pull it takes to snap the line be it your hooklength or mainline . This is particularly relevant when using braid as either hook length or mainline ,as braids breaking strain is notoriously difficult to predict hence people using braid with very high breaking strains as they have no real idea at what level of pressure the braid will part hence the need to have to ' build in ' a huge margin of error
 
Back to the original question;)

I have been using Preston Reflo Power ever since the great Keith Speer recommended it in his articles on here.

If it was good enough for the great man it's good enough for me and has never let me down, helping me land some very big fish including double figure Salmon
 
Keith Humphreys said:
Back to the original question;)

I have been using Preston Reflo Power ever since the great Keith Speer recommended it in his articles on here.

If it was good enough for the great man it's good enough for me and has never let me down, helping me land some very big fish including double figure Salmon
Click to expand...


What is it that you like about it Keith (floats well? casts well? limited stretch? abrasion resistance? diameter : strength?) besides being dependable? And why do you only use it now as hook-length Cliff? Have never used it myself.
 
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