Copper/Leadcore Tips???

[MarkNY]

I just rigged up my first copper setup today and found it difficult to put on the reel without kinking so im a little concerned about fishing with it. do you have any tips for trouble free fishing with copper? i used howies 45#, 300' on a okuma magda 45 with 50# power pro backing and a 50' 20# leader. i used albright knots for all of the connections. also, how much backing do you normally put in the water when fishing off boards or off the chute both with leadcore and copper? thanks alot, mark

[goin deep]

I put a 10ft section of mono between the copper and the power pro backing and hook the board onto the mono. The only time my backing goes into the water is when a fish is taking drag. When you first start fishing copper, don't open your bail to let line out. Use your drag to put the copper out until you get the "feel" for letting it out. Freespooling copper WILL make a big mess. Trust me on that one!

Brian

[GAMBLER]

Slow Slow Slow. When dealing with copper, take your time. I usually put my coppers out first. Keep the boat around 4 or 5 mph and deploy the coppers. Slow the boat and put it on the boards. When you reel the copper on keep it really tight.

[Paul Czarnecki]

Good solid info above but I would also add......

--shorten your leaders to 15 or 20 feet.

--eliminate the albright knots in favor of small Spro Swivels

--when you go to untangle your first mess make sure you are patient. It WILL come out.

--when you have your first tangle that will NOT come out and you have to cut it all is still not lost. Simply splice the two sections together with back to back haywire twists.

--when you have a 300 copper that started out as a 500 and it has 8 or more splices in it you can then consider yourself a "Copperhead"!

Good luck!

[lilboat]

good tips

As for.....

do you have any tips for trouble free fishing with copper?

No such thing as "TROUBLE FREE fishing with copper".

Cap'n Buffa once explained to me when I asked him after one of his seminars at Bass Pro Shop, "What does Fishing, Math and Chess have in common?"

Tony says, "They're all about Problem Solving".

(Tony is a math prof at the local college and also plays competitive chess)

As for a tip.

Be ready when reeling in a fish with some spunk left, just when the copper all comes out of the water, as the tension changes quite a bit,

I lost some fish at this point when I first used copper, and hopefully have a chance to lose some more.

You'll get the feel of it with practice.

[Broadhorizons]

I agree with all the above. Don't overthink it though. If you send it out too fast then to the side on the board, you'll hook a dipsy. If you let it out too fast, you might loose control of the spool and backlash or you will also let it sink to much and risk hooking bottom. Once you have it out, take your time hooking to the board so that if it has sunk lower than it will typically run, you give it time to rise into "normal" depth. At the "normal" depth, it will go out over a wire or braid dipsy. Then send it way out to the side. Only tangle I've had so far is when I had a hot steelie take the dipsy under it. I usually have one or two out every trip.

Good luck,

[MarkNY]

thanks guys. do you think that 10' section of mono between backing and copper is a must or can i get braid to stay in the planer board release without too much issue? id like to avoid another knot in the system but i dont want false releases either. best, mark

[Missdemeanor]

Mark, I learned the hard way about releases. I'm sure that the ten ft piece of mono will work. I have my copper albrighted right to my power pro. What I do now is half hitch a rubber band on the power pro, then I put the band into a pinch pad release and send it out on the otter boat. The band is kind of a snubber when a king hammers the rig. Good luck

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[Miss em]

We run a fair bit of copper and what has worked well for us is to terminate your braided backing to the Spro swivel using a Figure 8 loop knot. Tie the loop with a large loop about two feet long, then half hitch the loop through the swivel. When you hook on your release (Scottys for the big boards, Offshore OR-18s on the inlines) you hook it onto the doubled line on the loop. Seems to hold great. There are a few vidoes on the Fish Doc site about rigging copper, I don't think the loop knot tip has made it on there yet though.