Cheater and Flor. Carb. Leaders

[bob3567]

I have been following the board with a lot of people running cheaters off there lines.

My question is this. If the cheaters are 6 or 7 foot long. I take it your not running a flor carb leader off the main, line down at the ball.

If you are, and its also about 6 or 7 foot long. Then if a fish is hooked at the cheater thats 12 to 14 foot of line to the pole. Right? Or am I missing something.

Another question is. How productive is the cheaters. Since they are targeting the rainbows and browns. Which to the best of my knowlege are boat shy to begin with.

Do you really get them to hit that close to the boat say. 12 to 20 down. assuming your running a cheater off a stacker line also.

[Big Dave]

There are two types of cheaters fixed and free sliding. The free sliding is cliped to the main line and it seeks its own level. When a fish hits you see the rod shake and if it pops the release the rod goes slack for a minute. The slider goes down to the swivel on the mainlines lure . And you fight the fish knowing that you can'r reel up that length of slider line. The bow of the main line determines where the slider is fishing.

The fixed slider works the same way except its cliped to the mainline . Say 5', 10' , or whatever above the release at the ball. I use the small black offshore release for that. There are libitators and rubberbands that can be used insted.

I use a dulock snap ,6" of 50# line . Run it through the hole in the offshore release then tie a bead swivel . When I want to fix a slider, I clip one end to the bead swivel. Then using the clip I put on the release to the main line than clamp the release to the main line. It holds it in place till a fish hits , or it pops off at the rod tip and slids down to the mainline lure on a retreve.

[Big Dave]

To answere the other question the cheaters are very productive. It also lets you play with lure size with out taking you hotter baits out of the water.

[bob3567]

Dave thanks for the reply. I knew about the sliding cheaters, not the fixed.

So If i look at your answer to my question, I guess your only using 6" of leader not 6' of leader for the cheaters.

I couldn't see how running a long leader would work with a long leader off the mainline.

Unless the barrel swivel off the mainline leader was small enough to fit thru the eyes of the pole. Then you could reel up to the swivel off the mainline and only have the cheater line left.

Or run 2 leaders of 3' for the cheater and mainline. then the total would be 6'.

Now I could start a new topic off this but Its part of your answer to my question. I didn't know about fixed cheater, and I'm trying to put a mental image together on how you make and attach it to the mainline.

But I'm getting lost. Im sure it's not your fault in the explanation of how to make and do it. Its the difference between seeing it, and reading it. So what i've been thinking about for sometime now was making videos on all these things, and putting them either on a webpage or uploading to youtube for future people to see and understand.

I'm going to look into this further with a couple of friends of mine, and see if there game for meeting people like yourself, and others with the basic knowledge of things like cheaters, downriggers, dipsey divers, and using the equipment the correct way etc.

There is so many people that i think it would be useful for. And its so much easier seeing how to do it, then to try and read, and figure it out for yourself.

Over the years most of the stuff I was taught came from the old, and wise fisherman. I would of loved to have all the information put on video for future people to see. They might be old and not as able to do things like they did in there youth. But time and time again on the water, or river the'll kick my ass evertime.

[Big Dave]

Will try to post a picture. The dulock snap is clipped to the mainline. Its tied to the 50# 6" line . The offshore release is threaded on that , you clip it on the mainline above the dulock snap. The other end of the 50# is tied to the bead swivel. The slider is clipped to the bead swivel and 6' of leader to the spoon. They used the fixed slider when you read about Mupped rigs.

[Big Dave]

The first is the fixed slider , this one is tied on

The second shows how I clip it to the mainline

the third shows a romer liberator, works kinda the same way

The forth shows a leader keeper that I keep my sliders on. I have a couple with differant line test sliders.

[Yankee Troller]

Fixed cheaters are very easy. Get some rubber bands and a cheater line. Take you main line and hook it up to the downrigger as you would normally do. Send the downrigger down 5,10, or 15 feet. Take the rubber band and half-hitch it to your main line on your downrigger rod. Then take the swivel on the cheater and hook it up to the main line of your downrigger rod and also to the rubber band. Then run your downrigger down to your desired depth.

I run fluorocarbon leaders on all of my downrigger lines, or any line I will be running a spoon on. I use a blood knot to attach it to the main line and then reel the fluorocarbon until that knot gets to the hook keeper on the rod. I then cut the fluorocarbon at the same level. So basically I am giving myself about a 12' leader. You dont want to have to reel a blood knot or Uni to Uni knot through a levelwind during flea season! Non-downrigger rods (Junk Lines) get about a 30' Fluorocarbon leader on my ride.

Our cheaters vary depending on the target species. If we are targeting Rainbows or Brown Trout then Fluorocarbon cheaters go down. If we are King fishing then its straight mono. My reasoning behind this is watching how line shy Trout can be in the streams. My cheaters are measured as follows. Tie a swivel to a spool of line. Hook it to the main line of my rigger rod. I then reel my rigger line so that the lure would be about a foot from the tip. I take the cheater material and run it down the rod and around the reel handle then half way back up the rod. We like to keep our cheaters on the rods for easy storage. This should give you about a 10-12' cheater.

We will run fixed cheaters when the fish are in a narrow band of water. Sliders when the fish are all over the place.