Line Strenght - Reds and Trout fishing

[Whiley_Whiting]

Hi all

Wondering what line class and rod class you all use for fishing for red emperor amd coral trout, I was told recently to go for 80lb, however wouldnt 50lb be sufficient?

Your comments would be welcome.

Cheers
Craig

[dayoo]

Hi all

Wondering what line class and rod class you all use for fishing for red emperor amd coral trout, I was told recently to go for 80lb, however wouldnt 50lb be sufficient?

Your comments would be welcome.

Cheers
Craig

Craig,

The line strength depends on the area you are fishing in.
If there are bommies and coral reef go for at least 65lb braid or 50 lb mono (offshore 1700 and some areas off Fraser).
If there are no reef structures then 50lb braid and 40lb mono is sufficient.
I have seen reds up to 18kg landed on 35lb mono but you have to be an experienced angler with matching skills and good rod and reel.

I have only ever used 40lb platypus platinum with 70lb leader to chase reds and have bagged out a few times over the years but where I go the bottom is only open rubble country and the reds can be played without fear of bust offs.

Cheers
Barry

[nidrac]

Mate,

The advice Barry gave is pretty much spot on just wanted to ad that if there are a lot of sharks around you may consider dropping back on the strength a bit too. I run 60lb braid on my line as i'm not too keen on spending an hour playing out a shark as we get 10-20 each per night around where we fish. If your worried about them busting you on the reef try tie a longish wind-on leader, i generally run 5-10m of 80lb mono whether fishing 30m for trout or 80m for reds. However where we fish with all the taxmen around we generally fish with locked drags so the long windon acts as a bit of shock obsortion too i haven't had a problem to date. (have landed trout to 80+cm and reds to 10kg using this)

Nidrac

[GM-Bluewater]

I fish a fair bit off Fraser for reds and RTE's and use 60lb Braid and 80lb Mono leader and a G Loomis pelagic series 15-25lb rod. Seems to be fairly successful. There is always a few times when you get busted off and sharked though. Lost a few big buggers over Easter, just couldn't turn them to face up!! You can always go heavier to chase the trophy fish but i find 60lb Braid to be the best.

[Flex]

All depends on the reel and rod you use. No point is using 80lb line to the max if your reel cant handle it.

Also 80lb or 40lb braid snaps like cotton across a reef. Like Nidrac says, I run a 10m top-shot of 120lb mono if I'm fishing in really reefy country for trout. I'd be looking at 60lb Minimum. Alot of trout will smoke you on anything less. Then again spend a week up cape york and the trout there smoke you on 250lb hand line..lol

Reds on the other hand dont often brick you like trout. So a 50-60lb set up will catch the majority.

Its a fine like between heavy enough line and going to heavy you pull hooks all day..