Fishing with a Trotline

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Most states require that a trotline be run a minimum of once every 24 hours. For best results you should run your line at least once every 12 hours. Morning and evening is standard, and a serious trotliner will often run his line several times during the night. The longer the fish is on the line the greater the chance he'll get away.

Be advised that 100 feet of trotline can turn into an incredible snaggle if you don't gather it up and carry it right. I've pulled trotlines into the boat and ended up pretty well catching myself in a rat's nest of hooks and knots. For a long line with a lot of hooks a five gallon bucket works well. Circle the line into the bottom of the bucket as you gather it up and hang the hooks on the rim, in order, as they come along. Reverse the procedure to lay the line out.

A condensed version of this is to use about a two foot length of 3" plastic drain pipe. Wind the line on the bottom end of the pipe as you gather it up and hang the hooks in order on the rim at the other end as they come along. Again, reverse the procedure to lay the line out.

Wrap a trotline haphazardly on any old piece of driftwood—as I did before I learned better—and I guarantee you'll end up cussing yourself.

Fishing Lines Continued

Limblines, throwlines, and juglines are variations on the same theme. A limbline is a trotline that's tied at one end to a limb or bush on the shore. It may employ multiple hooks with a float and weight at the far end to hold the line out in the water. Or it may be a single baited hook dangling in the water. The important thing is that the limb "give." If you tie the line to a stout limb or tree or any object that doesn't flex, a big catfish, gar, or carp will pull loose, break the line, or straighten the hook. This is also the reason the weights on a trotline should not be too heavy.

A throwline is simply a trotline that's baited up on shore and thrown out from the bank with a weight attached.

A jugline is typically a line tied to a single, floating, one gallon jug-sort of a big bobber. The line may be weighted to the bottom and carries several hooks baited at different depths. Thus, while a "longline" type trotline fishes horizontally in the water, a jugline fishes vertically.

An intriguing variation on the jugline method was told to me by L.V. Hurst, longtime angler of the Tennessee River near Savannah, Tennessee. L.V and friends would go out on the river of a moonlit night, bait some hooks, tie short lines to some jugs, and toss them over the side. These jugs weren't weighted to the bottom; they floated and drifted. Soon they had a dozen or so juglines floating slowly down the Tennessee River.

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