Berryessa trout 11-7-12 plus a trolling question

[Jfitalia]

My Camanche trolling with Rapalas at 2.0 to 3.5 GPS

Don't use a snap swivel at the lure. Use a small Duo-Lock snap. Makes for easy changes. Also i use a 5' leader with a Crane Swivel. I have never had my line twist... As for extra gear in the water to scare the fish away, It will NOT affect the Bite. Going that fast, its a reaction strike... Good Luck!!!

Robbie (Koke Machine)...

I just do whatever Robbie does!

[CRABBY]

My Camanche trolling with Rapalas at 2.0 to 3.5 GPS

Don't use a snap swivel at the lure. Use a small Duo-Lock snap. Makes for easy changes. Also i use a 5' leader with a Crane Swivel. I have never had my line twist... As for extra gear in the water to scare the fish away, It will NOT affect the Bite. Going that fast, its a reaction strike... Good Luck!!!

Robbie (Koke Machine)...

Plus 1......Thanks Robbie......Don

[Koke Machine83]

My Camanche trolling with Rapalas at 2.0 to 3.5 GPS

Don't use a snap swivel at the lure. Use a small Duo-Lock snap. Makes for easy changes. Also i use a 5' leader with a Crane Swivel. I have never had my line twist... As for extra gear in the water to scare the fish away, It will NOT affect the Bite. Going that fast, its a reaction strike... Good Luck!!!

Robbie (Koke Machine)...

[brianvolt]

For straight spinners I use a small rudder with a weight connected to the bottom of it. Run 6 feet of fluorocarbon to the spinner. You can get small rudders at Fishermans Warehouse in bulk for a couple of bucks. This lets me run an 8# mainline and use light pole.

[untalan1]

I troll my spinning rods with 10# braid with a swivel at the end,then tie a 3' mono or florocarbon.

[buckman78]

Just my 2 cents,
I always use a swivel. I use one for casting and for trolling on pretty much everything. There will be times or certain lures when thats not even enough. At least with a rapalla they are made to swim straight and right side up.
When I use dodgers and crawlers, I use one before the dodger and and one after to connect the line to the bait.
The way I look at at it, is the swivel is shiney and if anything, adds more more flare.
I have never noticed a problem or lack of fish. Besides its harder to catch fish when the lure isnt working propperly plus, with twists and tangles there is jusy more chance of the fish breaking off.
Plus with a snap swivel its easier to change lures around and you dont have to keep retying knotts.

When I first got a boat and started trolling, there is so much to learn, and like you I started here, and pulled up articles. Plus I went to fishermans warehouse and asked the guys there. Its easier when you get a visual.
And the best rule of thumb I can give you for trolling, swivel or not, is to put your lure next to the boat and see how it looks. Different speeds affect rapallas, dodgers, flashers, crawlers and grubs all differently. That is all trial and error, and you only can learn and finesse your skills by doing.
Good luck and tight lines!

[Steve079]

The open face spinning reel is putting twist in your line. A level wind and then the swivel-leader set as mentioned, will fix it. I like to add a small duo lock at terminal end to make lure changes easy.

[ApexPredator]

A quality barrel swivel tied a 36" above your lure is what I do. Both for line twist issues and I use braid as a main line so I put mono on the last 36".

[redneckpunk]

couple of ideas for you that I've used (im no trout trolling guru) or seen used:

1) a good snap swivel directly to lure as you suggested. Some claim this adds unintended weight to the lure causing a lack of action or undesired action

2) A swivel on mainline with a 18-36in leader tied directly to lure.

3) "chain swivel" used same as #2

Lucky for you we have plenty of trout guys on here that can probably offer even better solutions than mine.

~RNP

[Eric123]

Expected fantastic fishing, but from 8am-noon, my dad and I only managed 3 really nice trout and 2 undersized bass. one trout was 2.7 pounds. we were trolling right infront of skiers cove where we saw most of the fish chasing shad. We tried kastmasters and rapalas, discovered rapalas got the most bites. Depths were between 4ft and 15ft. I forgot to bring the buckets to slow my boat down, so my average speed was 2.7mph. Even though i only managed 3 trout and 2 undersized bass, the trout fought very hard and made up for not having higher numbers.

My question is: I troll using all spinning gear, and my rigging consisted of tying on the rapala straight to the line, no snap swivel. I got horrible line twists in all of my rods. Obviously a swivel would have helped a little bit, but i was afraid extra hardware would scare away the fish from biting. Can someone please recommend a way to prevent line twists while trolling?

Thanks!!