Help! Heavy spinning set up

[E.T.]

Hi everyone,

I haven't really posted much but I've read a lot of things on here for advice in the past so I hope there are some knowledgeable people who could help me. I'm looking to get a set up which can handle medium sized sharks from the beach that I can also use to spin for long tail, kingies and mackerel off the rocks. Pretty much a general purpose set up for big fish. I have experience with medium sized dudes like rat kings and soapies but I wanna get to some big dudes.

I recently bought a Penn Slammer 3 7500 so that's the reel covered. I did some research into braids and currently I'm leaning to getting either 80lb or 65lb spiderwire stealth because of it's thin diameter. I have used Berkeley fire line in the past but they don't sell their line in 600m lengths. I also find that the colour of the black fire line bleeds a bit. Would anyone have any suggestions?

If I used 80lb spiderwire (which apparently has the same diameter as 65lb power-pro) do you reckon Id have enough line to paddle out a bait on a kayak for sharks? The reason I want to use 80lb is because my Penn Slammer 3 has a max drag of 50lbs, which I intend to use because I've been spooled too many times on 25lbs of drag with my lighter set ups. And yes, I know how hard it is to hold onto a rod with that much drag, but I do a decent amount of gymnastics and weight lifting so I reckon I'd be aight if I had to (I did a 30 min fight on 25lb drag against a gigantic ray and I busted off because I wanted to get back to fishing and not waste time on a bloody ray that I was never gonna get in). But if anyone with more experience could give me their opinion, that would be much appreciated.

For the rod, I was thinking of getting the Penn Carnage 2 but I couldn't find it anywhere. I already have a tallish surf rod I can chuck the reel on, but for a medium sized spinning rod I have no idea what to choose.

If anyone has any suggestions it would be much appreciated. I don't have the biggest budget because this all comes from my $13 per hour job at Kmart 😃. I would really like to land my first bronzie and long tail.

Thanks in advance. 

[rickmarlin62]

I would go for a lighter braid  with much more ccapacity than the short lenghts of 80lb your thinking of    there is no need for line that heavy for longtails   unless you are fairly large fit build you wont be able to fish heavy drags off the rocks     i have caught hundreds of longies  heaps of cobes mackerel and sharks in 40 yrs of lbg  and heaviest i have used up nth is 30lb mono  i have used 50lb down south on large yfin and marlin off hard ledges  but if your not physically capable of working heavy drag  go with line capacity over line weight any day   im not up to date on latest rods but old school fsu 5120 rods were our choice for longer rods off nth coast ledges for spinning or live baits

[rickmarlin62]

Ps  you say you have worked 25lbs of drag for a length of time  unless your using a gimbal n harness  you will find it very hard to fish heavy drag over a long rod for any length of time  also  check with scales if you are pulling 25lbs of drag actually   also what line size are you using at moment

[browncrab]

Save your penny's and get yourself a cheap gt rod around $300 to $400. ie revolution gt special, saltist pe 6-8. Hold on tight and have fun. 

[E.T.]

9 hours ago, rickmarlin62 said:

I would go for a lighter braid  with much more ccapacity than the short lenghts of 80lb your thinking of    there is no need for line that heavy for longtails   unless you are fairly large fit build you wont be able to fish heavy drags off the rocks     i have caught hundreds of longies  heaps of cobes mackerel and sharks in 40 yrs of lbg  and heaviest i have used up nth is 30lb mono  i have used 50lb down south on large yfin and marlin off hard ledges  but if your not physically capable of working heavy drag  go with line capacity over line weight any day   im not up to date on latest rods but old school fsu 5120 rods were our choice for longer rods off nth coast ledges for spinning or live baits

 

9 hours ago, rickmarlin62 said:

Ps  you say you have worked 25lbs of drag for a length of time  unless your using a gimbal n harness  you will find it very hard to fish heavy drag over a long rod for any length of time  also  check with scales if you are pulling 25lbs of drag actually   also what line size are you using at moment

Hey RickMarlin62. Thanks for the reply. You are exactly the kinda guy that I was looking for because I wanna get into lbg fishing.

I didnt realise that line didnt have to be so heavy for those big fish. I watch morningtide fishing and those guys use 51kg line but they go after GTs and stuff so you are probably right (cant argue with your experience haha)

I was using 30lb line before. I only locked up the drag because I saw the size of the ray that took my dead bait. Otherwise I wouldn't risk going that close to breaking strain. I dont have a gimbal and harness because I havent been doing too much big fish catching sadly 😥. But at the end of the year imma head down to Jervis bay with some mates for some lbg fishing. Already excited for that 👍. Although im a smallish dude (171cm) I do have the capability to hang on to large fish I think, because I have a decent background in fitness (I can bench more than double my bodyweight) but I guess we are still yet to see if that carries over to fishing

If you have caught yellowfins in 50lb then I reckon id be aight with 65lb braid then.

Thanks again for sharing your experience

[E.T.]

55 minutes ago, browncrab said:

Save your penny's and get yourself a cheap gt rod around $300 to $400. ie revolution gt special, saltist pe 6-8. Hold on tight and have fun. 

Hi browncrab, thanks for the reply

I'm looking for a 2 piece rod because I aint old enough to get a car yet (2 more months till I can get my license!!!) so I usually take the bus and train. Do you have any specific suggestions I could look into?

[PaddyT]

mate if you can fish 25lb of drag you must be a big lad thats all i can say, Rick is dead right , 30lb is about as much as you need for 99% of LBG other than  Jervis Bay marlin. Drag smoothness and fighting technique is much more important than anything else. Longtails will arc up and down the rockface in the end stages of a fight and good use of freespool will stop them rubbing you off, kings- well they are kings, the problem with them is they will crash dive you into cover in lots of spots without needing to pull drag, the key with kings is getting over them and getting the rod tip out to keep the line away from the rocks- I used to fish spots that big kings were doable eg Avoca because you could get them below you and keep the line away from the rocks, other spots I never landed a fish above 5ks because of the terrain. 9kgs of drag is too much for 99.9% of the population without a harness BTW- go and measure your drag with a set of scales

[rickmarlin62]

I would stik with 30lb braid  it breaks heavier than that anyway  then you have a good amount of line  a solid longtail can peel 200 mtrs of 30lb  sharks can be unstopable  im 6ft 1 and n98kg and have been fishing all my life and i wouldnt try fishin 80lb on a threadline  lbg   buy a tyrnos or similar lever drag  they have 3 times the capacity of a threadline

[xerotao]

1 hour ago, E.T. said:

 

I didnt realise that line didnt have to be so heavy for those big fish. I watch morningtide fishing and those guys use 51kg line but they go after GTs and stuff so you are probably right (cant argue with your experience haha)

MTF boys fish with heavy gear because GTs tend to try to reef you. While the longtails iv seen and caught LBG would just send off to the ocean. So i would go for lighter line so i could fit more line on the spool. Just dont over estimate it. because with heavier gear, you would be fishing the fish and the gear.

[E.T.]

1 hour ago, PaddyT said:

mate if you can fish 25lb of drag you must be a big lad thats all i can say, Rick is dead right , 30lb is about as much as you need for 99% of LBG other than  Jervis Bay marlin. Drag smoothness and fighting technique is much more important than anything else. Longtails will arc up and down the rockface in the end stages of a fight and good use of freespool will stop them rubbing you off, kings- well they are kings, the problem with them is they will crash dive you into cover in lots of spots without needing to pull drag, the key with kings is getting over them and getting the rod tip out to keep the line away from the rocks- I used to fish spots that big kings were doable eg Avoca because you could get them below you and keep the line away from the rocks, other spots I never landed a fish above 5ks because of the terrain. 9kgs of drag is too much for 99.9% of the population without a harness BTW- go and measure your drag with a set of scales

Hi PaddyT,

Yeah I did measure it but with a small scale (Only goes to 20lbs so I just estimated because the needle went a bit past). But I was fishing on a solid wharf. I can see your point because I wouldn't wanna risk it on jagged slippery rocks. So do you reckon 65lbs is also too much?

[E.T.]

46 minutes ago, rickmarlin62 said:

I would stik with 30lb braid  it breaks heavier than that anyway  then you have a good amount of line  a solid longtail can peel 200 mtrs of 30lb  sharks can be unstopable  im 6ft 1 and n98kg and have been fishing all my life and i wouldnt try fishin 80lb on a threadline  lbg   buy a tyrnos or similar lever drag  they have 3 times the capacity of a threadline

Ah right. What brand of braid would you suggest? I haven't really tried too many braid varieties before. Do you know what type of braid Penn uses to measure their line capacity?

I can't really change reels right now because I already bought a new one recently, but maybe for next time. The reason I chose a fixed spool reel is because I wanted to throw some big lures as well as use bait sometimes.

[E.T.]

Also for the rod, I'm currently thinking of getting a Penn Ocean Assassin. What do you guys think? I kinda want a 2 piece because I gotta take public transport around and it just makes it easier, I hope I don't lose out too much on rod strength.

Just curious, what set ups do you guys use for lbg fishing? Like line, rod and reel.

[xerotao]

I dont see any penn ocean assassin that would work in your scenarios.

Why not a penn prevail 9 or 10ft?

[xerotao]

16 minutes ago, E.T. said:

Just curious, what set ups do you guys use for lbg fishing? Like line, rod and reel.

Spinning, i use a custom 10ft 5-11kg rod, jdm spheros 6000 with 30lb 8xjbraid

Thats what i use for longtails now.

[E.T.]

53 minutes ago, xerotao said:

I dont see any penn ocean assassin that would work in your scenarios.

Why not a penn prevail 9 or 10ft?

I'll have a look into those. Cheers for the suggestion.

48 minutes ago, xerotao said:

Spinning, i use a custom 10ft 5-11kg rod, jdm spheros 6000 with 30lb 8xjbraid

Thats what i use for longtails now.

Oh cool. So the main thing I'm getting at here is that line capacity is the main concern when lbg fishing right? I was actually looking at the Spheros as one of my options when I was looking for a reel. I was choosing between the spheros, saragosa and the penn slammer 3 but I chose the slammer because of its shiny handle haha.

[PaddyT]

400 m of 30lb is all you need for most spinning situations, keep your cool in a longtails first run and you will be fine, on the NSW Nth coast that is the hardest running fish you are likely to encounter. NSW sth coast is a different fishery, the guys i knew who fished JB for blacks used 50W or 37 size Tiagras and Pennn Inters- these held about a km of 50lb mono, i am guessing most guys these days would used braid backing and a mono topshot- but i am long off that scene> I reckon casting distance and retrieve speed are pretty critical for an LBG spin outfit, i would of thought the Spheros was a bit slow but Xerotao certainly used his to good effect - my theory is get the fastest reel you can- you can always wind slower- some days speed is king-stcikbaits/poppers and soft plastics dont generally need as much speed as metals but every day is different- find a reel that winds in about 1-1.1 m of line per crank . The hard part about landing a longtail is the last stage of the fight when they tend to arc up and down the rockface- if you freespool they usually do a 180 turn- thats why i preferred an overhead- instant control. I have no idea of off the shelf rods- my rock spin rods were either custom jobs or built by me. Used FSU4120's for years, lastest rod i had built was a Calstar900 which is awesome- i would sell it but its built for an overhead reel.

[PaddyT]

4 hours ago, E.T. said:

Hi PaddyT,

Yeah I did measure it but with a small scale (Only goes to 20lbs so I just estimated because the needle went a bit past). But I was fishing on a solid wharf. I can see your point because I wouldn't wanna risk it on jagged slippery rocks. So do you reckon 65lbs is also too much?

one of my mates is an ex NRL player and built like an outhouse- he is an excellent fisho and he cant pull 9kg of drag for more than about 10 minutes without a harness- the point of a drag is to tire the fish out not increase your winching capacity-

[browncrab]

8 hours ago, E.T. said:

Hi browncrab, thanks for the reply

I'm looking for a 2 piece rod because I aint old enough to get a car yet (2 more months till I can get my license!!!) so I usually take the bus and train. Do you have any specific suggestions I could look into?

Google shimano revolution stickbait pe 4-8 or daiwa saltist hyper pe8 rod. These are 2 piece and in your budget. Check out dinga if they have them in stock.

[E.T.]

On 7/6/2019 at 3:25 PM, PaddyT said:

one of my mates is an ex NRL player and built like an outhouse- he is an excellent fisho and he cant pull 9kg of drag for more than about 10 minutes without a harness- the point of a drag is to tire the fish out not increase your winching capacity-

Ah ok. Well, the stingray I fought wasn't running the entire time which is probably the only reason I could hold on haha. He moved a bit, then I had to turn the drag all the way up to try crank in his dead weight, then he moved again and I had to reduce, and so on. I just know that at the end of the fight, the drag was somewhere over 20lbs. It was at the drag I was using to pull in its dead weight. If I had to hold a running fish for the full 30 mins then Id be dead too.

I also had the railing of the wharf to lean the rod on when I got tired so yeah, on second thought, I definitely would not be able to do it on rocks.

Also, good point. I just thought with more drag, you'd have more stopping power but I ain't no expert. It's just that when I was getting spooled I was standing there thinking, "I just wish I could hold this guy back a little harder". I'm sure you guys know that feeling haha.

[xerotao]

On 7/6/2019 at 3:21 PM, PaddyT said:

i would of thought the Spheros was a bit slow but Xerotao certainly used his to good effect - my theory is get the fastest reel you can

The spheros are slow. Thats why i bought mine from japan. Slightly different to the aussie models and has a faster retrieve ratio. At half the price of a saragosa

[slothparade]

On 7/6/2019 at 8:55 AM, E.T. said:

Hi browncrab, thanks for the reply

I'm looking for a 2 piece rod because I aint old enough to get a car yet (2 more months till I can get my license!!!) so I usually take the bus and train. Do you have any specific suggestions I could look into?

im in the same situation. I got a 2 peice saltist pe8