# Kayak Trolling



## kayak22lee (Dec 2, 2010)

any trolling tips in general, will be mainly trolling bibbed lures or live baits; yellowtail and squid. any rigs techniques or trolling spots in port hacking appreciated. Sinker or no sinker when trolling live baits? hook in back or mouth for yellowtail?
lee


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## RackRaider (Nov 10, 2010)

depends on what your tolling for mate, and what speed you can comfortably get your kayak up too.
i need to know that information to really know what a good setup would be for the trolling


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## kayak22lee (Dec 2, 2010)

kingies, tailor, salmon bigger inshore fish. my kayak can get up a good speed, which is good for like the lures, but how fast for trolling livies


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## RackRaider (Nov 10, 2010)

I don't know much about port hacking but i can give you some tips about live bait trolling from a kayak in general. 
For kings a Yellowtail pinned through the nose and the belly or just above the spine with a heavy live baiting pattern of hook, Gamakatsu livebait pattern is fantastic. hooks snelled with 100lb hard wearing fluorocarbon leader on and a ball sinker 20-25cm above the livebait, (weight depending on depth and current) try a variety of speeds and their is no "perfect" speed

For Tailor the best results will come from lures and dead bait, the traditional pilchard on ganged hooks work, but i find trolling divers and spinning metals around the edges wield better results.
Australian Salmon are much the same but the lack of teeth allows you to lighten the leader and discard the ganged hooks but be careful many times I have zoned into a school of Aussie and started landing fish I'd lose 1 out of every 5 because I had been bitten off by a tailor that regularly mix with the schools of salmon. I have found the best results come from trolling shallow Diving minnows, as salmon regularly break out on the surface.

For other inshore species like Amberjack, Samsonfish, and a variety of Tuna species there are other techniques to catch them. For the first two jigging and livebaiting and flicking soft plastics all catch their fair share of fish with Jigging reigning supreme, Though I haven't tried Jigging from a 'yak so for all I know it could be difficult and quite awkward.
Tuna however Can be caught By Trolling minnows, skirted lures, soft plastics, dead and live baits, spinning metals and high speed soft plastics all work. Yellowfin and Southern Bluefin are usually caught on skirts and bibbed minnows, While Mac and striped tuna can be caught with very fast retrieved soft plastics and metals, much like one would do for bonito.

Ask me if you need any more info


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## kayak22lee (Dec 2, 2010)

thank you for the reply, much appreciated. will be out hunting for them this week.


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## ELM (Jul 14, 2008)

Hi RackRaider
With the skirts, how fast are you trolling them and do sharks tend to have a go at them as well?

I have only tried (limited) skirts a few time's behind the AI looking for thresher and Kingies in Port Phillip Bay, was wondering what your take is on them?


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## RackRaider (Nov 10, 2010)

Elm, 
I am not exactly the expert on skirts as I prefer bibbed minnows but i will tell you a much as i know.
I use them only for the smaller sized Bluefin, I would not want to catch a tuna over 50 pounds from a yak.
I usually use the Black Magic devils because they are cheap and surprisingly effective, chuck these out about 30-40m on a 15kg rod and troll about 5-6km an hour, (I can comfortably get up to that speed in my profish)the faster the speed the better they seem to work, the Mirage Drive on the Hobies would be perfect as i have heard they are fairly quick.
Mix them up with some minnows because they may prefer them on the day, the Rapala X-Raps and Halco Laser Pro's are pretty good.
sharks can be a problem some days but my experience with them is they usually eat the tuna you have hooked rather than the skirted lure.

If they do eat the skirt once or twice it wont be as bad a the Devil's are Fairly cheap compared to other brands 
but if they are regularly chewing them up and ruining them just pull them in and try something different.

I hope that answers your question, If I haven't there are a lot of other people on the site a lot more knowledgeable on the subject than I am.


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## ELM (Jul 14, 2008)

Thanks for that, I am actually wanting to target the threshers, started last year but had to stop because of the back and neck. Since the op am hoping to have a go again next season as I will miss this one.

Water depth is in the 4 to 8 meter mark.

I only have a couple of skirts 1 is a black magic the other no idea, I also have a large range of Xrap Magnum in 15, 20, 30, Tail Dancers in TD09 and Tdd11 and a heap of 7" Storm Herring plastics. The plastics using an aggressive jigging style not unlike USA bass fishing while pedaling in reverse, have given me two hookups but a knot failure and leader break saw the end to them, the X Raps have only hooked pinkie snapper in this area for me and nothing on the skirts but I really didn't get to do much with them. In other areas (water depth 18 to 22 meters, the X Raps have accounted for a few good hits, one small bronze and a gummy and the big plastics more hits but no hookup (distinct bites no tail slaps).

I originally got the skirts to troll behind the AI out in the eddies of the RIP for kingies but have not got back out there to try them, and only tried them twice along with the X Raps for the threshers. I actually think the Xraps are diving to deep, the plastics I can feel there tail hits and that is where the hookups have been as they try to stun the plastic. Those hits have normally taken place when the plastic has reached it's highest peek on the lift of the jigging (mid water column).

I don't have many surface lure's and have been eying the skirts as possibly a good option for the AI as I can generally (with two lures and one downrigger bomb) hold average speeds of around 4 to 7 knots (7-13 kph) depending on the wind speeds and direction to the area being fished.

I know the guys swear by the Halco's for the snapper so plan to get some in the future, but I want to get a variety of largish surface lures rather than deep divers, hence the question about the skirts.

I set the AI up so I could troll one lure deep on the down rigger and three either mid water or on the surface, just never been game enough to troll and try to handle the four rods at once, in 20 knot winds and the right conditions with four lures out, I estimate I should still be able to maintain around 5 knots (9kph) on each pass along the channels and a little less in the shallower water due to the increased chop.

Anyway thanks for the input.


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## kayak22lee (Dec 2, 2010)

what do you think off trolling;
a bibbed minnow - xrap, looks like pillie
and a surface popper 
for kingfish


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## paulthetaffy (Jan 27, 2010)

My livebait trolling rig is pretty similar to this (I use snapper leads though so I can change them quickly). I have about a rod length of 40lb fluro (which I'm going to change soon to 30lb to match my braid), then a snap swivel to which I attach my sinker (on a short loop of light line for breakaway). I then make up hook lengths of around 1m off 40lb fluro with a swivel at one end so they they too can be attached at the snap. The advantage of this is that most bust-offs occur in that last 1m section, so you can just clip on another hook-length and away you go. Also means you can have various hook sizes/patterns made up too. And lastly you can take off the hook length and sinker and you're left with a snap swivel on a trace to which you can attach a lure for the troll home  I use a single gamakatsu circle hook through the nose when using yakkas, but be sure to hook it in the centre or it will spin. Hooking through the back is great if you're stationary as the yakka will continually try to swim down. However I find you tend to drag them along sideways and kill them when you're trolling unless they're through the nose. For squid if it's small enough then the same rig with the hook through the very top of the mantle. Same rig also works for squid strips too. I'll be honest though, when livebaiting or using squid I spend most of my time on slow drifts over likely spots with rod in hand, as opposed to trolling around. This is why I use a circle hook and have the rod in gear at fighting drag. Then just wait for the rod to load up - no strike necessary.

With so many bonnies / salmon around at the moment, if you troll a livie without a sinker you'll almost certainly get hit by them rather than kings, which tend to sit deeper. If you want to target bonnies & salmon then there's no need to use livies as SP's or HB's usually work better. In which case my standard trolling pattern is a 3-4" SP flickbait on a 1/8 or 1/4oz jig head on 8/14 lb on one rod and a medium sized deep diver on 14lb on the other. If I'm specifically after kings then the SP turns into a 5"+ flickbait on 1/2oz on 14lb

Paul


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## kayak22lee (Dec 2, 2010)

thank you for that, i will use that advice, how do attach main line to rod length of 40lb


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## paulthetaffy (Jan 27, 2010)

I use an improved albright knot which for me is the easiest braid-to-mono knot to tie and gives a pretty reasonable strength. There's a few variations but this is the basic improved albright...
http://www.marlinnut.com/knots/albright.shtml (bottom one)
google for the animated / video versions. Practice it a a few times and it becomes really quick and easy!
I use this basic improved albright but then at the end add a couple of half-hitches using the braid tag around both the mono loop and the main braid line just to lock it all in - it's not strictly necessary to do this part though.
This isn't the best knot for casting as the mainline tag faces the guides, but then this isn't a casting rig  I use a small dab of the missus' clear nail varnish to keep it all nice and tidy and ensure that the tags don't slip. Again not necessary, I just have a penchant for tieing rigs


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## kayak22lee (Dec 2, 2010)

i have a plfueger 5500 spin reel and a graphite 12 - 16lb spin rod, what pound braid should i be using? i have 10lb, but i dont think thats sufficient, 14lb or 20lb ?


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## paulthetaffy (Jan 27, 2010)

It really depends what you're chasing. My kingy outfit is a 12-20lb rod with 30lb braid on a 4000 size reel. You could easily knock that down to 20lb braid though, which I'm going to do at the end of this season. My trolling outfit for medium HB's/larger SP's is 6kg spin stick with a 4000 shimano baitrunner and 14lb braid and I use this for salmon/tailor/kings/bonito (FYI I like the baitrunner for trolling as I can stick it out the back and forget about it until the baitrunner sings!). My SP's outfit is a 2-4kg rod with a 2500 reel and 8lb braid. I've caught everything on this up to legal size kings, though they do take a bit of stopping!

Others might disagree with me, but I don't see the point in using anything over 20lb braid from a yak, unless you're very experienced or are in something super stable like a PA or have outriggers, because you just can't put enough pressure on them from a yak to worry about your mainline snapping before you become unstable and fall out  I don't know which reel model you have, but it's not likely to be able to exert 20lb of drag pressure anyway.

Leader is a different matter though, as the heavier line is there to counter abrasion. I found that out the hard way recently when I down sized to 20lb leader (still 30lb main) trolling a livie and got rubbed off on an unstoppable king with near locked up drag.

if there's one thing I've learned since fishing off the yak it's that you can fish with lighter line than you think!


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## FiftyCal (Sep 1, 2010)

paulthetaffy said:


> It really depends what you're chasing. My kingy outfit is a 12-20lb rod with 30lb braid on a 4000 size reel. You could easily knock that down to 20lb braid though, which I'm going to do at the end of this season. My trolling outfit for medium HB's/larger SP's is 6kg spin stick with a 4000 shimano baitrunner and 14lb braid and I use this for salmon/tailor/kings/bonito (FYI I like the baitrunner for trolling as I can stick it out the back and forget about it until the baitrunner sings!). My SP's outfit is a 2-4kg rod with a 2500 reel and 8lb braid. I've caught everything on this up to legal size kings, though they do take a bit of stopping!
> 
> Others might disagree with me, but I don't see the point in using anything over 20lb braid from a yak, unless you're very experienced or are in something super stable like a PA or have outriggers, because you just can't put enough pressure on them from a yak to worry about your mainline snapping before you become unstable and fall out  I don't know which reel model you have, but it's not likely to be able to exert 20lb of drag pressure anyway.
> 
> ...


Wow, good information here. I was thinking that I would need a 50lb outfit to downrig with a yak, and was beginning to start saving up for a new stick and reel. I completely forgot that the yak isn't as stable as a boat lol


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## Zed (Sep 18, 2006)

Interesting stuff.

Personally I don't ever go below 15# and usu I use 20#-40# spanning 4 rigs.
1 straight 15# mono dedicated sabiki rig
1 40# powerpro braid w/ 20# flouro topshot for soft plastics
1 25# or 30# straight mono for live bait (straight flyline with 1 or 2/O hook sideways thru the nose of a sardine or green mack) or a heavy jig 
A Carolina rig with 1-3oz sliding egg sinker above a barrel swivel is an option here. 
1 65# powerpro braid w/ 40# mono topshot for deep dropperloop baits or bounceball with 4-16oz weight below the dropper
All conventional reels; leverdrag on the heavy one (tld20)

Teeth and kelp just break off too many fish below 15# around here. 40# is about the limit you can break off if you get straight over the snag and pull straight up. Just a tip: A few wraps around a pliers gives you good purchase to bust it if you need to, w/o leaving a mess of mono or braid in the water. Pull straight up, not across the deck to keep upright when it lets go.


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## kayak22lee (Dec 2, 2010)

went for kingies and got a few rats, but hits by bigger fish. was using plastics, any idea to rev them up a bit.


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## ELM (Jul 14, 2008)

On the kayak (AI) the most I have used to date is 30lb and mostly use no heavier than 20lb with heavier leaders. Where as on the canoe when I was living on the Murray, I used up to 50lb on the hand lines because of all the snags and abrasion etc, managed alright.


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