Trolling with braided line

[Bnature]

Is anyone trolling with cranks and boards using braided line? Any down side to using braid other than lack of stretch?

We use big boards rather than in-lines for one good reason (but I don't want to start an argument so I won't say why we are right and everyone using inlines are wrong - mostly.) We prefer braid with the big boards because it snaps out of the releases better when a fish bites or we need to pull it free. Precision Trolling Data does list dive depths for braid - (10 pound Fireline)

[Softshellcrab]

I think lots of people, maybe most, troll with braided line. Someone made a good point about knots, but the Palomar knot is good. And easy to tie it to a snap or a snap swivel. I do not buy the expensive PowerPro for trolling (I do buy it for my spinning reels for casting). Amazon and even Cabelas sell some less expensive but still very good braided line. We seem to catch a lot of walleye. We don't have very many get off. We don't have to baby the line and don't change it nearly as often as we probably should, changing it only every few years (or longer.....), but it does not break off on us. We use 30 lb. If you are trolling crank baits, you may want to use a fluorocarbon leader. Or don't.... We usually pull worm harnesses and we just clip them to our snap swivel. Obviously for dipseys a mono or fluorocarbon leader is used behind the dipsey.

Biggest problem we have had is it slipping of the snap weights that snap onto line, and slipping when we use inline planer boards. But recently we switched from snap weights to just using an inline sinker we can clip on with a 3 foot or so mono leader behind it going to a snap swivel. That is easier and it does not seem to bother the fish at all. And no worry about slipping. If the walleye are biting at all, they are not hard to catch off Cleveland.

[Lerie]

Have been using braid for some time without any issues. At one of the Niagara Falls Fishing Expo's I sat in a seminar where one of the Charter Capt.'s that was participating in the seminar said that he used braid on his downriggers. Thought about changing and made the move over to it. I found that it made it easier to detect those fish that get hooked and swim along. The only negative was with the rigger release that I was using which utilized a nylon/plastic pin that you rapped the line around. I had been using this type of release since the mid 1980's. The original one was called the Wil-Jer. What was occurring was the braided line was cutting a groove into the pin. After some research on rigger releases I switched over to a Black's release that has a steel pin on it which solved the problem.