How to: Build a Trotline

Transcript for the video on how to build a trotline.

Alright, today we're going to show you how to assemble a trotline. There are many different ways, this is just one. It seems to be the most popular way. We're actually posting this for a customer who called today and asked.

The components we’re going to use today, our main line, we're going to use size 48 tarred braided. This seems to be the most popular thing going. With the braided line you get away from all the twisting and rolling up with a trotline.

We’re using number 12 tarred for our staging, we’re using 1/0 Rosco swivels, they match the line very well. And we're using the Eagle Claw L197 circle hook in size 4/0. This size hook is extremely popular. It’s our most popular size. We're going to start with cutting our stagings, we would typically wrap this around a board or something. I’ve cut this one about 32 in long, I like my stages to come out to be about 16 inches long.

We're going to match the ends and we're simply going to tie an overhand knot. It is important if you want to do this, to take and really stretch that knot tight. The reason being is that when we make our staging we're going to put this knot in the middle. And if you don't pull the knot tight, then one side will stretch longer than the other and put all the tension on one side or another and your staging won't last that way. So once you got all your stagings tight you can just kind of set them aside and we're going to move this stuff out of our way.

We got a roll of 48 tarred braided line here in a bucket. To me a bucket is pretty necessary. What we're going to do is we figure out how many swivels we're going to need on this line. You need to figure out how far apart you want them, how much footage is on the line and only put the number swivels on here that you're going to need. To demonstrate, first we put about 8 or 10 on here.

What you going to do is slide these swivels down toward the line and I like putting this in a bucket as so. Now we already have one swivel pulled out here by itself so of course we're going to pull off however much line we want to tie to the bush or whatever and purposes here I'm just going to leave a couple feet. I would normally leave about 10 or 15 foot.

We're going to tie one overhand knot in, like this. Okay, you would reach and pull a swivel up, slide it up towards this knot here. To tie the next knot, what you going to do is simply throw a loop in here. Now pull off a little bit of line but only what you need. Throw a big loop in here, you're going to reach through the loop, pull the twine with the swivels up through it and then work this knot over toward this one and we try to leave around 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch between here. Then you're just going to pull those down tight. Now when doing this you got to make sure that the swivel is matched to the line.

You want to be able to tie a knot in it and the swivel will not be able to jump over there knot. Now you have to think ahead because these knots do pull down extremely tight over time so make sure you have plenty of knot here okay.

At this point you would simply pull off however much more you need, usually will put them out 6 ft line between them. Some people like more and of course you chase your swivels on down and then you do this and you repeat the step.

We're going to throw a loop in here, pull the line through it, we're going to say we've got it marked where we want the knot to be, we're going to put our knot. We're going to pull another swivel up through our knot. Chase the swivels down, throw another loop in here and pull our line and swivels up and run this knot up to the other swivel. After you do this a few times you get very good at this okay.

And so forth and so on until you get all of them done. At this point we are ready to put our staging on okay. So we have the staging that we tied here a moment ago, we're going to put that knot roughly in the middle. We're going to pinch the staging. We're going to insert it into the eye of the swivel. Now to me this knot is very critical.

A lot of folks will simply just loop this through here one time and pull this down, but if you do, what will happen is that your knot will get up on the eye of the swivel like so and too many times it will either wear the swivel in two or it’ll fray and catch up in the swivel and it won't work. So instead of going through one time we suggest going through twice. And when you pull this knot down make sure that the knot ties around the twine and not up here around the neck of the swivel okay. And of course pull it down tight. Now we're going to pull the staging until we get this evenly spaced and pinch the other end.

At this point we’re ready to put our hook on. Very important when you're applying a hook to a line you always want to go through the point side of the eye first, okay. You don't want to come to the back side the hook will catch and snag much better if you tighten this way. That's an old Boy Scout trick for all you boy scouts out there. When putting a hook on, same thing as when you put it on the swivel. You want to go through twice and you don't want the line around the shank of the hook. It will wear the hook in two right there, make a weak point and a fish will get on and it’ll snap. At this point it’s best to grab the swivel and pull this not down tight so that these lines are evenly spaced. And so you're going to draw this down with this tarred line, it's a little difficult to make it slip. A lot of times I will grab something that I can put in this eye and hold and it makes it easier to draw this down. But we're going to pull this down, draw this tight, notice that our knot is on the staging. It is not around our hook.

And there you have it. You simply carry on and do all of the others the same way. If you got any questions, call us here at Nets & More (The Fish Net Company LLC), 1-800 256-5652.