Long line knots

Nick Zito

Nick Zito

Active member
Curious what folks use for their long line knots? My father would kill me if he heard me asking this after having me on the sail boat for the first 20 years of my life.

I'm looking to put 15' sections of long lines onto a spool. SS key rings on one end, SS carabiners on the other, so I can have a modular spool depending on depth. Same orientation of clips and rings to be on the mother's with decoys attached and the anchors.

I'm looking for a knot that's fairly easy to tie, but won't get bound up when the spool is, well, spooling. The best solution in my mind is to use an eye splice, but holy crap would that be a time suck for the number of rings I have to do. I feel a bowline leaves too much free floating material as they don't slip. Maybe a Davy knot?

Open to suggestions.
 
I personally haven't had issues with a bowline tied snug. For the loops, I use a simple overhand dropper loop. Decoy to longline clip gets bowline. Long line clip gets clipped to overhand dropper.
 
I like the idea of that system. I would definitely make my sections much longer - say 15 yards. I use 40 yard longlines and they work ok shallow (little long) and fine through 20 feet, I'm usually setting in 5-10-15 feet so that is a good length.

For a knot something smooth and small without a tail would be good, can you do something like a whipped loop (no splice, just lay the tail to the mainline and whip it) and then put large adhesive lined shrink tube over it to make a smooth connection. Hog rings could work under shrink tube. I've had times when I got my lines stuck, so they need to be strong. The adhesive lined shrink tube really holds on lines and can be had for real cheap these days in bulk.

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For my ends I have extra thick long line clips - a lot of the commercial fishing stores have them, they are probably twice as thick as regular clips, the swivels on them allow for 1/4 inch line in them - I have put a lot of stress on them at times ;). They work really well and believe it or knot - carabiners will open on you unless they are locking, but that would be a pain. I'd try to find stainless welded rings too, there are times when you put quite a bit of stress on those lines in the current.
 
Bowline on the ends. I use the mother line from Decoy Rigging. No knots in the middle... The long line clips or snaps hold... I use the 4 inch .
 
My concern with the long line clips on the spool is that they'll become a mess, which is why I was thinking something smaller- ie carabiners
 
so speaking of longlines, how long are y'alls droppers from the decoy to the mother line generally? I am trying to figure out the mother line thing vs putting on 10-12ft decoy lines on all the diver decoys......

Dani
 
Dani
The length of the dropper is up to you
But if hunting with a dog make sure your mainline sinks (decoy rigs line sinks)
and make the droppers long enough for the dogs to swim through without touching the mainline
 
The mainline, drops, and decoys I'm not concerned around. It's really like the sections that will be spooled up for depth and anchor deployment that I'm concerned about binding while spooling or unspooling. If I use long lines clips on the spool, I feel it will bind when paying out to set anchor depth. Those 4" clips are pretty large if I wound them onto the hose/extension cord reel that I plan to use.

Maybe I'll just give it a shot and see
 
Nick
You can use the reel for the mainline/anchor lines just tie your clips on your droppers and no clips on your mainline then.
Unclip decoy with dropper and clip from mainline and reattach to the mainline when deploying.
With the decoy rig line you do not need to put it on a reel. It doesn't get tangled.
 
patrick mccarthy said:
Nick
You can use the reel for the mainline/anchor lines just tie your clips on your droppers and no clips on your mainline then.
Unclip decoy with dropper and clip from mainline and reattach to the mainline when deploying.
With the decoy rig line you do not need to put it on a reel. It doesn't get tangled.
Click to expand...


EXACTLY! If I am taking the decoys off the motherline, I still put it on a reel, it is just out of the way that way. I prefer to leave the decoys on the line.



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Tod I think this is the best method I've heard to modify my proposal. Have eye loops (with hog rings or whipped) on the line spooled up (for anchor and sash weights), long lines clips on the anchors and both ends of the sections of mainline with decoys already attached (in slotted bags).

My only thought is how to keep the many sections of spooled line in unison for spooling, but I could have a carabiner connecting the two eye loops and clip it to the side of the spool so it doesn't go into the drink when I'm deploying based on depth.

A few trial runs for sure to come
 
Nick, if you use the heavy commercial longline clips others have mentioned with 4/0 swivels they will grip the longline well enough to not slip, unlike several of the diver hunting longline clips sold by Avery and several others, which allow the decoy dropper to slide and bunch blocks up on the longline. This is really advantageous when you need to grab your outside anchor and drag the entire longline to adjust for a wind change. Having the clips on your dropper also lets you open or close-up your spacing, based on preference and/or bird behavior.

Dani, as others have stated make them long enough for a dog to navigate the spread without tangling, short enough to minimized tangling when packing or setting. I use heavy Toro leaf litter collection bags over a reel. In col weather be careful with these, the bottoms get stiff and can crack; not a lot of fun to each be dragging a decoy sled behind you while carrying one of these damaged between you for any distance Each holds 22-24 oversize blocks with the longline ends clipped to opposite handles on the bag top. I prefer this route over a reel since I can adjust my spread size and species array by simply loading bags or unloading them from the boat. Also the leaf bags collapse and clip-down to occupy far less space than a reel, which also has a finite capacity. I just measured my lab's height at top of shoulder to set the dropper length. I tie a clove hitch, backed by a half-hitch and then whip finish the tag end after heat sealing the end. All these receive three coats of net coat thinned with mineral spirits to provide abrasion protection. We used to use a clove hitch backed by a half to hold gillnets and anchor lines, never had one break or work loose.

I like a sinking longline that is stiff enough to minimize its propensity to tangle via looping. These also are dense enough via their weave to absorb little water, minimizing ice build-up and freezing when they are out of the water. Decoy Rigging and Doctari are the principal ones I use. The Avery?GHG green longlines are not my preference, just supple enough to knot together too tight to untie with cold hands, they soak up water like a sponge and freeze, and they barely are strong enough to tow.

Build Your Own Longline - Bing video

Tim Speight and Pat Gregory know how to rig longlines.
 
Nick Zito said:
My concern with the long line clips on the spool is that they'll become a mess, which is why I was thinking something smaller- ie carabiners
Click to expand...

That's correct. It would be. Personally, I prefer to have my main line shots separate from the decoys. That's the purpose of the LL clips. Pay out the main lines and clip decoys on as you go. Some guys have a way better system. Jeff Coates makes it look easy and I believe he literally leaves all the decoys attached to his mainlines.

There aren't too many "wrong" ways to do it. You can do a bunch of different things. For example, scuba clips from my tech diving days would work as well.

You're going to be hard pressed to find something as easy to clip/unclip as LL clips.
 
I'm not sure if I made this clear prior, but I'm not concerned about attaching the decoys and their droppers to the mainline. I'll leave them all attached to a shorter section of mainline with clips on two ends that will sit in the slotted bags. So effectively each decoy section of mainline will have 6 decoys affixed to say a 20' section of mainline via droppers and long lines clips with a clip on one end of the line and a loop on the other end of the line- let's call it a "short". This way if I want 6, 12, 18, 24 decoys on a single string- if you will- I can quickly attach or detach 1, 2, 3, 4 shorts.

My real question is specifically to the "spool" (and how to avoid binding while spooling) with standardized lengths of line that's solely for the anchors and subsequently sash weights - each anchor will have a clip or loop so I can quickly attach at need. I'd prefer to link them all together so they wind up easily on the reel

Thus, if I'm in 5' water, I can grab a mushroom anchor, attach one or two sections of line from the "spool," attach 2 "shorts", another 2 sections of "spool" and clip on a sash weight. If I'm in 10' water I can change the number of "spool" pieces and/or the number of "shorts".

So the ultimate question was which type of knot of other method of eye loop can I form so it doesn't become a big mess on the spool. I like Tods idea with the hog rings or whipping, maybe carabiners to link the "spool" pieces together.

Drawing for reference. Maybe this has been answered and my brain is just cooked today from my pending first vaccine dose.
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