Watch out for snakes that might get snaged on it after eating a small fish.

Decoy anchors for weights, quart oil bottles for floats. I tied/pinched on swivels every couple of feet and used dropper lines with snap swivels. That way we could bait a new set of hooks onshore, and when we went to run the lines, just unsnap a fish or an empty, and snap on a new baited hook. Beat the hell out of fighting wind and current and maybe a motor with a crawler, leach, or piece of liver in one hand and a hook in the other. Spaced floats and or weights every ten hooks or so as needed. If your state requires labeling the oil bottles are easy to write on. You can use this rig in a backwater, a reservoir or a river. Even drag it out and drop it so it works down a drop off.

I just went to walmart and made a 75' 22 hook trotline.

Now i just need to figure out how to make my weight rig.

I'm thinking a sand filled milk jug in the middle and on the end.

Something like this very bad ms paint.

I prefer the ones that go all the way across and anchor to another tree. Thats how they do it back home anyways. I would not use liver as it falls off to easy. We used to use chicken skins, gizzards, fish, etc.

Make sure you have a dip net to get the fish in the boat. A big fish can get off if you don't have one.

fished with a trotline last weekend and caught a bunch of catfish. But two things dont do it drunk or it becomes a big ole presidental mess, and when you store it make shure its put up real neat as to not tangle everything. Aside from that have fun and dont catch them all

We used one like that off the end of a dock at Lake Tawakoni. One night we got a big flathead after baiting up with some live bluegill.

You can get circles down to very small sizes. They work well and help keep the fish killin down on the releasee's. For Catfish I wouldn't use anything too small however, 1/0 or so.

Other things:

Forget using anything but circle hooks. If you actually want to catch big fish, don't bother with anythingless than 3/0 hooks. It's AMAZING how your catch rate goes up with circle hooks. I use eagle claw saltwater hooks - don't remember the #.

Get a dip net. It's much simpler to net a fish than to lose it trying to get it in the boat by hand. And on lakes where there's a lot of recreational boating, either pull your lines at daybreak or expect them to get cut a lot by speedboats if you're suspending them, unless they're perfectly tight. From a safety standpoint, it's best to just pull them during the day, or sink them.

Oh, and try to run your lines right at daybreak - catfish are generally calmer in darkness. I've seen huge fish swim right into a net at night, and I've seen them go insane when pulled into sunlight.

Wow, thanks for all that good info. Jugs are illegal here so we had to go with the trot line.

I'm not exactly sure what a circle hook is.

I know it's a noob question but I'm not really a fisherman.

I'm really excited to get out there. I don't know if I can wait for the weekend I may have to go tomorrow.

ETA: feel free to critique the one posted above.

Critique of your line:

The knots will work, but a big fish will stretch the line, tighten the knot, and the swivel *may* pop over and tangle with the next hook. A big ball of melted plastic works better - which is why I like store-bought lines.

You need to use something other than monofilament for your droplines. It'll work fine for now, but in the future, get some tarred twine, 80# or larger. It's more abrasion-resistant, generally.

Use barrel swivels next time instead of snap swivels. Snaps can pull loose - I've seen big fish do it.

And for the next line, don't put your drops so close together. I've ran lines that were 600' or longer even in relatively small lakes.

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In large lakes, there may be a bit of current - you want to go to upstream of your fishing location and drift across it as you set your lines; make SURE you have a HEAVY weight at the upper end, or you'll drag it and hang it while you're putting it out. Anything works - concrete, lead, steel - old pieces of I-beam work great. Use the biggest thing you can handle.

When you run your lines, stop your engine at one end, RAISE THE MOTOR and let the current drift you down the line. You'll need to get used to handling the lines or you'll end up with hooks in your hands, I promise you. This is triple-important in rivers. If you try to use the motor while checking lines, you'll have to swim at night while unwrapping your trotline out of your motor's lower unit, eventually.


Don't carry anything in the boat you don't need - something to store the line (a cooler with a tie-down strap stretched across the top works - just dump the line in the bottom, hooking each hook onto the tiedown as you come to it - but DON'T turn the cooler upside down!) and something to store bait, something to store fish, a net, and a paddle, plus basic emergency tools and snacks. Keep everything possible in the bottom of the boat, not up on deck. Anything else will eventually get snagged on a hook and pulled overboard, usually at 2 AM while you're in heavy current and have a huge blue 20' away splashing around while you try to re-bait another hook.

Oh - and there are few things more peaceful than running wide-open across a lake at night with no light but your boat's running lights. At the same time, few things suck harder than wobbling back home because you hit a stump you'd forgot about because you didn't scout the area before fishing at night and your propeller is bent up.

If you dont know how to deploy and retrieve a trotline , or have never been taught you will drown your ass.

We went to SW today and got some floats and circle hooks.

I'll get some pics up in a while with the improved setup.

Here's my setup so far.

This will hold the hooks and bait as I go down the line.



A few drop lines. These hook are about two feet apart for 30' and five feet apart for the last 40'.



Floats for the end of the line.



These can also be used as anchors I hope but I'll bring extra weight. I got these these today they should be easy to write on the necessary info.



The leaders have easy removal hooks and pretty big circle hooks.



Let me know what you think.

Suggestions are welcome. I only made seven in case I need to change my design.

off with it's head.....i hate Gar

62 pounds.

No gators around here luckily.

Must be a barrel of laughs.

i like arowneragain's system, because you're not limited by ground cover.

TBK...trot lines up here are best when the willows are flooded....once the water warms. Also remember our OP is in New Mexicco

OP...I don't think you need splitshot on your dropper lines. Also i think the sand/jg weight might be too heavy

i believe so

Jug fishing is fun. Not for rivers though. We used to run jugs to catch snapping turtles when I was a kid. They are good eatin.

I love catching gar. I once caught one that weighed around 22lb (that was the best reading I could get on my scale, gar really don't lend themselves to be easily handled) on 8lb test line. It took me damn near an hour to pull that bastard in.


This thread has awoke my fishing bug.

One other thing:

Buying good bait is tricky - nightcrawlers are cheap, but minnows are expensive, and goldfish even moreso, when you can find them - so get a minnow trap and use it to catch bluegill or minnows. Smaller bluegill are better, generally. Big ones look great, but a 2# channel cat won't mess with a 6-ounce bluegill.

Here where I live, we also can catch shad minnows (threadfin?) using a cast net.

Whatever you do, if you make a habit of trotlining, you'll find that cheap bait becomes important.

Oh, something else:

If your drops are close enough that the hooks can reach each other, they will.



Untangling trotlines is no fun at all.

Store them right and you don't have to disassemble them. Store them wrong and you'll quickly grow to hate the sport.

bad ass.

I love trot line fishing for catfish.

I use much bigger hooks (circle hooks) and no swivels though... 20+lb catfish would break those swivels or hooks in a jiffy. I prefer to run them across a river at a narrow point, or between the bank and a tree in the water, or between two trees, parallel to the bank. No floats and lots of weight to keep the lines on the bottom. When you run the lines, go down the line one way to remove the weights, then back down to remove the fish, then back down again to either take up the lines or reweight/rebait. A stick with a hook on it is handy for picking up the line or boating a big fish.

There's an art to building good lines and keeping them untangled for stowage and deployment. In my family we keep them on wooden spools, and triple-wrap the mainline around the shank of the hooks on each drop (with the drops pulled down the mainline) for stowage. With practice, you can wrap/unwrap long lines with no tangles (this is important because otherwise nobody wants a 000 tied to a tree jammed up to the nut in their hand while being pulled downriver by the current... it's no fun at all.

I think I'm going to head back to SW today to get better drop lines. I think the mono filament would be strong enough but I thing it will be more prone to tangling.