HookedOnFishingBoats.com

You can’t completely trust what you read in the newspaper. You can’t trust what you see on TV. And everyone knows you can’t take rumor as gospel. What about fishing tackle company PR hype? Heavens, no. Put them all together and there’s quite a bit of misinformation floating around out there, and it could be affecting the way you fish. To find out just how misleading tackle myths can be, we put five common ones to the test—the real world test. You might find the results interesting… and eye-opening.

MYTH #1: Roller Guides cause less line wear than ring guides.

The Test: We place a rod with ring guides (high-quality, ceramic-lined Fuji guides) next to one with rollers (high-quality Aftco roller guides). Both were rigged with the same reel (a Penn Senator 113H) and line (20-lb. Ande IGFA-rated monofilament). Each rod was secured in a holder, and we tied the end of the lines to the bumper hitch of a 2002 Ford Explorer. Our test facility was a mostly empty parking lot, where we had plenty of room.

The driver floored it and peeled away, ripping line from the two rods. They bent over hard and the reels sang as seven pounds of drag was ripped out for a hundred yards. Then the driver stopped, cut the truck free, and returned to the staring point as we reeled the line in. We re-tied the lines, and repeated the test. After three runs, we cut 10’ long samples at the end of the line, 50’ deep into the spool, and 100’ deep into the spool. To test breaking strength we secured the ends of the samples to a scale and pulled until the line snapped, several times per sample.

BUSTED: All samples of the line, whether taken from the ring or roller guide rig, broke between 18- and 19-lbs of pressure. When averaged, the two types of guides tied at an identical 18.3-lbs.

MYTH #2: Flourocarbon leader is invisible underwater.

The Test: We set out a trolling spread at Poor Man’s Canyon, which includes three fluorocarbon leaders and three monofilament leaders. They are deployed in 50, 100, and 150-lb test, for each type of line. To find out how visible they are we send a diver over the side; Don Maher, a local SCUBA expert and accredited underwater archaeologist with hundreds of hours of bottom-time, does the job for us.

We find a lobster pot polyball, and use its tether as a down-line. First, Don submerges to 50’. We troll over him, and at that depth he can’s spot any of the leaders--but he can’t spot any of our lures, either. At 25’ he can see a few blurred images, but can’t see the leaders nor can he specifically make out any of the offerings: a six-squid yellow and pink daisy chain, a purple MP lures chugger, a blue/white Islander, a white-skirted ballyhoo, and two naked ballyhoo (with all hooks removed for Don’s safety, of course). When he recounts what he saw, however, the plot thickens. “I could see “V” shaped disturbances all over the place, between the boat and the lures,” Don tells us.

At 10’ below the surface Don reports that he can see everything clearly: the boat, the lures, and the leaders—all of them, regardless of size or type. “The thicker ones are definitely easier to spot,” Don said. “But before I could pick out any of them, I could see the V-shapes. It’s the spot where the leader enters the water—and it grabs your eyes nearly as quickly as the lures themselves do.” Note to self: Try to set the spread so the leader enters the water as far as possible from the baits.

BUSTED: At least in the top 10’ of the water column, fluorocarbon does not disappear from view any more quickly than mono. Line diameter, however, does make a clear difference. That’s not to say that flouro doesn’t make a difference in other situations; personally I wouldn’t chunk with anything else, and since the scientists tell us that refraction changes with depth, it may make more of a difference when the baits are set 20’, 50’, or 100’ below the surface. But when it comes to trolling up top… that myth is busted.

Tuna on a spinner? You bet.

MYTH #3: You can’t catch big game on spinning gear.

The test: We go tuna fishing with spinning gear. We set up to chunk at the Jack Spot, where bluefins have been thick lately. We have three rigs which we will attempt to prove are tuna-capable: a Penn 7500SS, a Shimano Thunnus 12000F, and a Shimano Baitrunner 4500.

There are two reasons usually given when you hear that big game fishing isn’t possible with spinning gear: line twist is too extreme with spinners, and there simply isn’t enough line capacity. We’re going to attempt to defeat both issues by rigging up with one of the new superbraids, since they aren’t as inclined to have twist problems and they feature less diameter per pound of breaking strength. We discover that when using 60-lb. test Magibraid, we can pack nearly 500-yards of line onto the larger spools and about 450 on the smaller spool. That won’t match up to the 1,000-yard plus capacity on some big game reels, but it’s more than enough when fishing for 100-lb. class fish in 100’ or so of water.

BUSTED: We chunk butterfish, and drift back our lines. Soon, the first strike comes—and 15 minutes later, a 40-lb. bluefin is flopping on-deck. We hook and catch a total of 4 tuna, the largest being a 70-lb. yellowfin. We never come close to being spooled and even after long fights line twist is a non-issue, but we do discover two spin gear drawbacks: you can’t use a stand-up gear harness because the reels don’t have lugs to attach to, and since these reels aren’t set up for clamps you have to constantly monitor the reel seat and make sure it hasn’t loosened. But there are also two bonus features to using spinning reels: First off, it’s easy to cast them (which means no more switching rods when encountering a board and you want cast at it for mahi) and secondly, line-to-leader knots easily pass through large spinning reel guides, so special wind-ons and wiring aren’t necessary.

MYTH #4 Fish can’t hear your fishfinder.

The Test: We launched a small boat in a 50,000 gallon tank in the National Aquarium in Baltimore, turned on 3 different fishfinders, and watched the results. An observer was posted two stories below at an observation window, while I was in the boat operating the units. Maximum depth was only 20’, so we can only apply the results to fishfinder use in shallow water.

I can’t say if the fish heard, felt, or detected the fishfinder in some other way, but they clearly did in fact detect it. When the units were off, the fish passed under the boat without hesitation. But as soon as one or more fishfinders went active, fish started detouring to avoid going directly under the boat. Tarpon, shark, and rays seemed particularly wary of the transducer pings, and we also noticed that snook didn’t seem to care much either way.

So—does your fishfinder scare the fish? Who knows! Can they hear or feel the pings 100’ below the surface? Who knows! But, one thing is for sure:

BUSTED: They detected the fishfinders!

MYTH #5: Poling your boat is the most stealthy way of propelling it.

The Test: We use a hydrophone (an underwater microphone) interfaced with a db-A meter (sound level meter) to discover which propulsion methods make the most noise underwater.

Our tests were conducted in 3’ to 5’ deep water, with a 16’ boat powered by a 30-hp Suzuki two-stroke outboard, a 12-V 24-lb thrust electric motor, a 24-V 72-lb. thrust electric motor, and a fiberglass push-pole. As you might expect, the gasoline motor made the most noise. Interestingly, it was louder in neutral than it was in gear at idle. The 24-V electric made significantly less noise (3 db-A, which is about double the volume as the decibels are measured in a logarithmic scale), and the 12-V electric made about one db-A less than the 24-volt motor with both set at WOT. On the muddy bottom, the push-pole was inaudible. When we tried the same test on a sandy bottom, however, it made just as much noise as the 12-V electric. And when the pole came down on a shell or rock, it made more noise than either electric.

In a mud or silt bottom, this myth holds true. But if you’re fishing over shells or gravel there’s a better chance you’ll get BUSTED by the fish when using a push-pole, than there is if you use a 12-V electric motor.

--Lenny Rudow