Why Wire Line - Part One

Trolling with wire line is a commonly misunderstood technique by the uninitiated. It is a wildly successful method of fishing for striped bass, bluefish and wahoo that is being rediscovered by a whole new generation of anglers.

First let’s clear the air a little. Trolling wire is not used to give the angler an unfair advantage and is usually lighter or equal in breaking strength to braid or monofilament line used for the same fish. It’s used to control the depth of the lures. The technique was developed over a hundred years ago to place trolled lures where the target predators spend most of their time, below the surface. For each ten feet of wire in the water the lure gains about one foot of additional depth. A lure will be running at about 20 feet with 200 feet of wire out; 30 feet for 300. This method is most popular for striped bass fishing although tournament wahoo fishermen use wire too, just for slightly different reasons.

A typical wire line outfit for inshore fishing for stripers and bluefish consists of a moderately sized conventional reel and a 7’ or longer trolling rod equipped with carboloy guides to handle the abrasive nature of the wire. The reel gets 200 to 300 yards of monofilament backing (50-lb test Grand Slam works great!) and then 300 feet of 40 or 50-lb test AFW Stainless Steel Trolling Wire or 40, 45 or 50-lb test AFW Monel Trolling Wire. The wire should be marked at intervals of 100’, 150’, 200’ and 250’.

If you’ve never fought a big striper or bluefish with a wire line outfit you don’t know how truly strong these fish are. The wire has zero stretch and you will feel every head shake, turn and hard-charging run of the fish. I’ve been striper fishing for over 25 years and one of the most memorable big striper days I have ever experienced was in November of 1991, when striped bass were scarcer than hen’s teeth, using wire and bunker spoons off Island Beach State Park in New Jersey. Me and my buddy, Joe Nunziato, caught 11 bass over 28-lbs including a 46, a 44, a 40 and several more in the high 30 lb class that morning! I’ve caught a few bigger fish in the years since, but that was a day to remember. Joe and I kept two biggest bass and released the rest and when the word got out we were the talk of the striper coast for weeks! In the early 90’s catching any bass was considered a victory, but this was simply unimaginable! Joe passed away after a very long and painful fight with lung cancer four years ago, but I will always remember him with a big smile as the photographer from The Fisherman magazine was taking our picture holding the two cows standing behind the console of my Mako.

With all the bass around today trolling bunker spoons, shad rigs and parachute jigs on wire line is more productive than ever and thousands of new anglers are rediscovering the joys of using wire line.  But enough for right now, we’ll get into trolling for wahoo with wire in a future blog. It’s high speed madness for a fish that is said to be one of the fastest creatures in the sea.

Caputi’s Blog Tip: Step-by-step instructions for marking wire line can be found on the AFW website or in their catalog, which you can download as a PDF file by clicking the link at the bottom of the home page. Then you can print it out for easy reference.

-Gary Caputi