trolling rod recommendation

[MattInOz]

Hey guys. As I mentioned in another post I got an introduction to trolling the other day. Pulled in a few taylor and had a great fight with something large that eventually got away before we could see it. All this was on an old (like 40+ years old I suspect) 7' Wilson rod I inherited from my step father with some fairly light braided line on a Shimano Hyperloop 4000FB reel, pulling a Halco "Laser Pro 120" lure that the boat's previous owner threw in with the boat. I've never tried trolling before and I had an absolute blast, but it's not really a trolling set up... more of a light casting rod, so I'm looking at getting a rod intended as a boat/trolling rod. The boat's too small (and the captain too inexperienced) to be crossing bars so I'll be fishing in Moreton Bay, Pumicestone Passage, and the Gold Coast seaway, so in waters from about 5-20m deep most of the time, and won't be pulling in Mako sharks or marlins so I'm not looking for anything too heavy. I've done a bit of looking around at the usual places and am fairly settled on one of the Penn GT 320 combos from Anaconda. It's a 6' single piece, graphite cored rod which the manufacturer describes as a "medium" boat rod suitable for 8-12kg and the reel holds 290 yards of 20lb mono, so I can put about 200 meters of 12kg mono on it, or more if I go braided. What do you think guys... is it a happy medium, or overkill for what I'll be doing? Would you suggest something else? I do want an overhead rod, just to keep the reel out of the way when in the rod holder without having the rod "up side down" so it's flexing the wrong way.

Oh and here's a gratuitous picture of one of our visitors the other day... he got to swim away and get bigger.

 

[Old Scaley]

The choice of gear will depend on what sort of trolling you are going to do. One of the big factors is the drag produced by different lures. If you are dragging a spoon behind a trolling board for mackerel you need a rod with a fair bit of grunt. I would say a 10kg rod as minimum. If you are trolling small lures for flathead in Bribie passage, then a light stick with lighter line is ideal. Around that 1 to 3kg rod, 10lb line and leader. You will often find the flathead are in very shallow water so try trolling on the bank with a flood tide and edge of the bank for the run out tide.

maybe keep using what you have for the lighter work and use the Penn outfit for trolling bigger lures in the deeper water? Unfortunately there is not really a universal setup that will cover all types of fishing, including trolling.

Good luck and keep us informed of your progress.

[Bob9863]

Sounds like it should handel most things, there's nothing wrong with going heavy with a trolling rod, stiff is usually best as its resistant to bending when the fish strikes and that can give you a much better hook set.

[MattInOz]

I ended up getting hold of one from Gumtree... a Shimano Charter Special 2000LD, with level wind and lever drag... and an unbranded but rather nice overhead rod, abt 5'6" long, with a roller tip... cost me $50 and he threw in 3 more lightweight two part spinning rods (no reels) for free. Gonna take the reel in and get it serviced then put some new mono on it and see what I can catch.