Cliff fishing ..... .. Need Help

[Kain]

Hi there people, I just bought a new Rod and a Reel so that I can go and fish from cliffs because the rod I already have is made of carbon (thin) and it would definitely break he he

Now I'm new to this and when I went to buy them, i was amazed at the size of reels that are used, really heavy duty he he 

This is the model I bought D.A.M Quick Space Evo 980FD
http://www.azzisport.com/DisplayProductDetails.asp?PiD=3607&MyCat=Fishing

My problem is that i don't know what line to use, I was thinking of using a braid line of around 9Kg 0.15mm but I would need quite a lot of it to fill up the spool and its not cheap, for a 0.30mm line i would need 700m to fill the spool so you can imagine what i would need for a 0.15mm line.

What size and strength of line should I use? and what type?
Any opinion and suggestions are welcome he he

[skip]

Cliff fishing sounds fun, not done it myself but I know they use heavy duty style reels. You don't need to fill up all the spool, in fact many anglers prefer not to. What rod did you buy, and see if you cant match the line up with the rod rating.

I would imagine as you have quite a long drop before the water you dont want stretch in your line so spectra/braid would accomplish that. 0.40mm seems to equate to 20lbs line, 400 yards. Choose 50lbs spectra and you can put up to 650 yards on the reel, but remember you dont have to put so much. Then have a nice top shot/shock leader of mono depending on what fishing you are doing and targeting, std mono, fluorocarbon etc and if you get any snags on the bottom etc at least the mono will break/tear not the bulk of your line.

Otherwise put all mono on and choose one with a low stretch and high abrasion resistance.

But I would wait for specific advice from ppl who do cliff fishing. Putting spectra on a reel is expensive so sometimes going all mono of the low stretch time is a good alternative.

[malliaa]

what type of fish would you be targeting?

[Freeman]

Hi Kain, I practice alot of rock fishing and use both braid and mono on a penn reels, the mono i use is yozuri guam .35mm/10kg and i feel every little touch the fish do even when fishing with 150m of line out. Dosent happen too often to catch something that can give a hard time to a .35mm mono tough I once landed a 2.8kg dentex on that line (many many moons ago)
So IMO if u want to save money go for a deceant mono.

Regards and best of luck for your fishing days

[Kain]

Hey Tnx for the help ppl,

I was searching on the internet and I found A couple of Good Priced Spectra Line hmmm 65Lb 500yards power pro Lm 11 and then there is the Yo-Zuri Hybrid which is much cheaper but is a line composed of mono + fluorocarbon .......  has any body tried this type of line?

Where can I find Yo-Zuri?   

The rod I bought is a silstar graphite 3340-390 ..... Couldn't find a pic on the internet sorry

I really don't know what type of fish I'm going for, I still have to experiment a bit to see what I can catch he he 

What type of rigs do you use?

[skip]

Mister fish carries Yo-Zuri.

Based on Freeman's suggestions, perhaps you should hold off on the spectra braid for now. Or if you found it at a good deal, Lm11 seems a good deal, buy the line and then keep it for now.

[Freeman]

I really don't know what type of fish I'm going for, I still have to experiment a bit to see what I can catch he he 

What type of rigs do you use?

Well u change the rigs depending on what kind of fish you are going for, For instance I usually use 2 rods when rock fishing, I use 1 rigged with a paternoster to tackle the majority of the bottom dwellers (Mrazpan,pagell,pagri,serran,cippulazz,sargi) and I use 1 rigged with a sort of runningledger, if I find ppl fishing for vopi that is, and I hook a live one as bait. Dont bother using the latter method with a dead fish as all u will catch will be busuf (from my experiance). When using live bait ideally u tie the lead with a piece of wire (loose not firmly tied) to the swivel connected to the main line, this way if the lead gets stuck u just pull a bit and the lead gets disconnected from the main line.

Also if u are gona use shrimps as bait I strongly suggest to use elastic line around your bait, since u will be fishing from a great deal of metres, having the bait last longer in the water is a must.

Hope this can help

[MartinB]

Hi Kain!
I dont know what kind of Silstar rod you bought, but i can highly recomend them!
i used to do quite of bit of cliff fishing with mine (bottom fishing) and i still do surface fishing with live bait with it from quite high up from the water (around 9m) especially during lampuki season & its never given me any problems (its an old graphite beach caster with metal type reel seat.Ive no idea what the serial number is as the printing has faded..ive had it a long time!) Here is part of it in a recent pic with a 5kg Plamtu

Ive never used a D.A.M. reel but it looks sweet! & if they are anything like their excellent rods it should be very good too
Also if your gonna be fishing from a very high cliff & very deep water kind of a spot,then a shock leader like skip mentioned is a MUST!   
Also i used to use a similar quick release method for the lead weight like Freeman mentioned which is very good idea too as you will inadvertantly get stuck on the bottom from time to time & this measure will save you from snapping your main line and having to re-tie your whole rig!
Good luck & tight Lines

[Kain]

Tnx for your replies ppl 

I think the rod I have is the same as the one in your pic he he because the rod handle is of leather and the saddle is metal, it was the last one she had and it was discounted at a very good price. Very nice rod.

Great ideas guys about the shock leader and the wire, can save a lot of time he he and I will definitely use elastic line (never done it before) around the shrimp because its very annoying when you find out that there is no bait on the hook, tends to happen a bit but I don't know why!

Is this the type of setup that you mentioned Freeman I found it on the internet (Great Place To Find Almost Anything  ... )  http://www.whitbyseaanglers.co.uk/rotten-bottom-rigs.php

Oh, and nice catch MartinB I didn't know you can catch fish like plamtu from land 

[MartinB]

Well if its the same rod then you can rest assured that it can easily handle most bottom fishing 
I know you must have bought it at  Fishing World in naxxar (?) cos they had some old Silstar stock @ good discounted prices (not suprising since unfortunatley Silstar went bust ages ago,so spare parts are pretty hard/impossible to come by!)
In fact i bought a 8m Eurostar fishing pole from there a while back (really good fishing pole too!) and last year i got another beachcaster from them quite similar to the one in the pic but a bit longer and a heavier action.

I caught the plamtu spinning not bottom fishing,but you can sometimes catch them on a running ledger rig or even on a heavy running float rigged around mid water or quite close to the surface.
Also if your gonna bottom fish with prawns then the elastic is nessecary so the fish don't pull your bait apart too quickly without giving you a chance to set the hook!

[Freeman]

Any luck recently martin ? again I came empty handed today, went to kalkara but nothing, 3 ppl fishing for 4 hours fishing for a burqax and a small sargu, with 6 rods in the water. Dunno if it's becouse of the nets but for sure our waters are running out of fish badly.

[MartinB]

Nothing much to write home about true but still alot better than when i last went mate... Me & Avalon went for a fishing session for sargi as we both have a couple of good spots for them but none of us caught anything!
Not even a slight touch...literally if we left the same bait on the hook when we started fishing it would have still been there when we left!  Couldn't really say why as there was a nice swell etc almost perfect conditions really.....just no fish! boq just one of those inexplicable things i guess     Never mind there's always next time!

[Kain]

Yeah I bought it from fishing world, i never bought a silstar rod before but they do seem to be of good quality, its a shame that they have stopped producing rods ....

I went fishing a few days ago and I caught a couple of good fish A good size Merlin and a couple of good size burqax, than i was catching xirghien's and sargu's but they were still small so I put them back maybe I'll catch them another day he he 

[Granitu]

gd thig to do at this time of the year do not expect many bites the fish are far more concerned in mating rather than biting and i think that i would do the same

[Freeman]

I agree with u granitu, but still, I used to fish all year round and this year is something impressive. Mind you it could be just a series of unlucky days, maybe i just ned to go to church more often :/