Trolling Live Slimies

[TunOFun]

Hello all,

Im fairly new to the live bait trolling thing but have been reading many articles.

I own a 5.7 m Quinnie which i am planning on using to tow a few live slimies around for Marlin in February.

I was just wondering as i dont have downrigger and was thinking of running one bait a bit lower in the water column if i could use sinkers.

Would a large barrel sinker attached to the leader do the trick or will the added weight to the rig be a downside if i actually hook a marlin (just thinking that the sinker being thrown around whilst a marlin was jumpoing around on the surface would cause the hooks to pull)

Should i attach a sinker with say a ruber band which will hopefully break in such circumstances?

Does any one use sinkers to troll live baits??

If so what type of rigs do you use.

Any help would be really great.

Cheers

Edited January 15, 2006 by TunOFun

[Bashir]

Most guys just run snapper leads. Attach them either to the double with a swivel, brass ring or one of those sinker clips. The sinker clips are good if you troll lures too because you can take them off without cutting the swivel off your double. You may exoperience a bit of problems with the sinkers - probably best to rig them on something that will break off during the fight otherwise with them flying aroung they can tangle up the trace with the double and cause a bit of problem.

Here is a rig I came up with for using barrel sinkers on your trace. I use it for kings with about 80lb trace. The line needs to double up through the sinker so it may be hard to find sinkers for your marlin traces - nevertheless its a good way to use barrel sinkers for trolling livies. Use circle hooks and you wont pull hooks on fish.