Trolling With Coloured Line - Use Clear Leader?

[JustJames]

Hi All

 

I am changing my trolling rods over to brightly coloured mono line to make it easier to see how far behind the boat they are for trolling.

 

Question for the trollmeisters: Do you use a length of clear leader to make the lure appear more natural, or do fish not notice that the tasty (but spicy!) morsel that they attack is following a bright lime green piece of line?

 

When using clear(ish) line I haven't used a leader.  Even though my target species (tailor, bonito and - on very good days - kingies) are toothsome critters, they bite the lure, not the line and I have never had a lure bitten off, unlike with bait fishing. 

[noelm]

Kingfish and Bonito will not bit you off, Tailor certainly will though! I always use a blue or clear leader to the lure, just a phsycological thing I think. Most of those species don't need to lure way out behind the boat.

[JustJames]

8 minutes ago, noelm said:

Kingfish and Bonito will not bit you off, Tailor certainly will though! I always use a blue or clear leader to the lure, just a phsycological thing I think. Most of those species don't need to lure way out behind the boat.

Thanks Noel

 

I've had tailor bit bait off, and even do damage to fairly stout leader.

 

Never had a problem with trolling lures though 'cause they have always bitten onto the lure and nowhere near the line.

[JustJames]

Hedging my bets - one rod has a leader, and one does not.

 

This will be a very unscientific test, as one lure will be closer to the boat than the other and the lures are not the same.  If the weather gods play along I will be able to report back after the weekend.

[slowjigger]

Well, it's good practice anyway to use a heavier leader, usually about double the strength of the main line. There is some more wear and tear at the business end even if a bite off is unlikely. You might hook a large fish like a kingfish which might try to reef you or a northern bluefin tuna which could fight for an hour. So just use a more neutral colour for your leader. 

[JustJames]

Results of a very unscientific study are in...

 

Went out yesterday trolling two lures:

Lure 1 - Rapala pilchard, possibly X-Rap Magnum on dayglo green line, no leader.  I ran this lure closer to the boat.

Lure 2 - Qantas/Redhead not sure if it's a Halco or Rapala, on dayglo orange with a clear leader of appx 1.5m, I ran this lure further back.

 

The dayglo green line is very easy for me to see in all light conditions.  The orange line wasn't as visible in early morning low light, but very visible once the sun was up.  I am very pleased that I can now place my lures with confidence.

 

The lure with dayglo green line and no leader had plenty hits, the redhead with clear leader scored a nice fish, but had fewer hits than the pilchard lure.

 

Conclusion, such as it is, is that trolling a lure that gets the attention of the fish that you are targetting is more important than line colour and lure placement.  Next experiment will be to try two of the same lures on the same colour line, one with and one without clear leader.

 

I also want to take a short length of each line under water to about 5 metres, to see what the colour absorption of water does to the two colours that I have...subject to the fact that I will be looking through mammalian eyes.

[noelm]

I can tell you exactly what happens I have done just that (and posted this before) to our human eyes, at about 10m, (or less)  all line looks like a grey stripe in the water, even "invisible" fluorocarbon is just a grey stripe, nothing "disappears" the actual colour goes grey, but the line is clearly visible...trust me on that one! Different coloured line varies in shade of grey a bit, but that's where it ends.

[big Neil]

noelm is right. Just like the colour spectrum red becomes grey first. I will be interested in the results of your next tests using the same lure. To be fair run both at the same depth and see if there is any difference in the bite action. Cheers, bn

[JustJames]

Yep. Next time out, same lure on same colour line and swapping positions after each bite.

[JustJames]

Right.

 

Ready for the next phase of testing. Identical lures on identical reels. Will swap positions with each catch.

[JustJames]

Planned to swap positions...but didn't.  Fishing took precedence over sciencing.

 

Fished the lure without a clear leader closer to the boat and the lure with clear leader further back.

 

As it happened the lure without a clear leader caught way more fish than the lure with a clear leader.   Over the morning we must have landed about 20 fish, throwing back smaller bonnies that were cleanly unhooked.  All but 2 of the fish were bonito, with 2 good sized tailor caught.

 

Hypotheses:

1. Fish don't like clear leader (seems very unlikely)

2. Lure closer to the boat catches more fish.  The passing of the boat draws the fishes' attention and then they spot what they think is a tasty snack.  (Plausible but not very convincing.)

3. Sample size too small to be definitive, but it seems that dayglo green line is no deterrent.  (Seems most likely.)

 

 

[big Neil]

One hypothesis not mentioned...fishing at different depths. The lure further back would be fishing deeper than the other. That certainly could affect results.

More research is required, I think...

An interesting experiment to carry out in clear saltwater. If you have the time and opportunity to continue the testing, I would be interested in the results.

Cheers, bn