Handlining pencils on one line?

[Hunter]

I was wondering if anyone has tried to handline pencil plugs and rapala's tied on one line. I have tried this in shallow water at night for shallow eyes with limitted success. We tie 20' mono line off end of wire connection to a large pencil, with a 4' mono lead off the back to a slightly smaller pencil, again another 4' lead to a #7 rapala. Has anyone ever tried anything similar with any success?

[John]

It is called piggy backing and it does work

[FireTiger]

Sounds like a recipe for doubles and triples, do they ever hit one line and bite off the lure being piggy backed??

[Hunter]

Ive only had muskies break line when hand lining. Its pretty exciting having them smash a lure and go on a 50 yard run! Only thing is they destroy your hole set up.Ive tried this instead of casting jigs at night, and we have found a couple spots that hold fish tight to shore and the only way to get a lure to them is by going upriver and "dropping" a set of pencils to them, it adds a new fishing place and dimension to it. I love finding new ways to fish.

[Eric Olson]

Hunter,
The only problem with that is it somewhat defeats the purpose of handlining. when the lines are stacked it allows the baits to follow independent paths. When you're fishing current areas the ability to go slower upstream and move laterally are keys in covering ground. Fishing the baits inline in a stalled or slow forward rate would'nt allow as much coverage vertically in the water column.Since the lead bait is on or near bottom the rear bait would be dragging. So when you set up your lines you try to find the right level on the shank as well as the right length, independently.

I'm not saying inline won't work, I've tried it, but I feel that independantly running baits gives you much more versitility.

In any event handlining is an awesome technique, and if you haven't tried it... JUST DO IT!

Tight Lines
Big Fish
Eric Olson

[Hunter]

I handline alot, but what im talking about is running the wire off the handline straight to a mono lead, with no weight at all with 3 lures/plugs straight off the end of the wire. This I hope keeps these lures in the top 1-3 feet. I only tried this when we realized Detroit eyes feed extemely shallow at night in the summer. It would be more productive for me to fish 3 lures off this 1 line. In Ontario we are only allowed 1 rod or we would troll with inline planers.

[saskfish]

Are you the Eric Olson who does outfitting on Lake Diefenbaker?