Seaducking Rigs and Ganglines

duckboy · 06-07-2006, 09:00 PM

OK,

I am gearing up and making the changeover from individually weighted deeks on long deek cords, to a long gangline weighted at both ends with a couple lbs of lead/concrete.

I need to acquire ganyons (shrimp clips) and I think i can order them online.

I need 150-200 feet of Dark colored 5/32nd-7/32nd gangline... something that sinks and is not visible when it is a few feet under... so no yellow or white lines, I might even have to dye a spool of line by hand.

Anyone ever found a place that has good rope for ganglines?

Is there someplace near Vancouver, or is all that stuff at the coast?

Get Bit · 06-07-2006, 09:17 PM

DB,

The best place I've found is Doctari long lines. They've got tons of cool stuff like you are talking about.

Get Bit

waterfowlin101 · 06-07-2006, 09:20 PM

I have two shrimp clips I'll donate to the cause!! :grin:

....for a ride on the new vessel!!

duckboy · 06-07-2006, 09:22 PM

SOLD!

Hell John, I was going to get you out in it anyway.

baltz526 · 06-07-2006, 09:26 PM

what is a shrimp clip

duckboy · 06-07-2006, 09:36 PM

Shrimp Clip is a Ganyon

baltz526 · 06-07-2006, 09:50 PM

the rig i have used, has extra large swivels. shrimp clips look much better

duckboy · 06-07-2006, 09:53 PM

Especially with cold hands

ogrejager · 06-07-2006, 09:59 PM

Yep, cold hands even. You use ganyons when you're (commercially) long lining for halibut. Quick and easy!

Actually, for your purpose a lot commercial gear would work--the ganyons and you could that cord in your picture are both typical gear. You might try a website in that direction.

nitrobass · 06-08-2006, 05:53 AM

Theres an outfit on the east coast that sells gang rigs and components. I cant remember the name of it but they advertise in Wildfowl regularly. I havent bought from them in 10 years but I still get periodic mailers.

Use the biggest components you can. Large diameter nylon rope - 1/4inch at least. Anything smaller is inviting tangles. Larger clips work better for cold hands also.

redfish89 · 06-08-2006, 06:34 AM

Hey duckboy,

I thought i saw what your looking for in the waterfowl addition of cabelas...
Good luck..

MarshBum · 06-08-2006, 10:31 AM

From what I know... which seems less and less each year, the Doctari lines are what most people use. Tarred lines.

For clips... I've used the real cheap fish stringers that are basically large safety pin looking things on a super cheap chain. I take the clips off of the fish stringer and use those. They are big and easy to use when it's cold.

Geoff

Ethical hunter · 06-08-2006, 03:40 PM

On my sea duck ganglines I always use just one anchor. I tried two a number of times but usualy had to re-set my dekes when the wind or tide changed. It is easier to just move the boat instead of all the dekes. If you are hunting from shore two anchors may not be a problem. I use 6-8 lines with 6-8 bill or can dekes on each line. Over the years I have had great sucess with this set up

EH

Wetwrk2 · 06-08-2006, 05:21 PM

I can't remember how much it cost as I just went in and picked it up over the course of a few months. Me and another guy just went in for half and got a hundred clips for around $80. They had the tarred line for the mainlines also.- Freeman

duckboy · 06-08-2006, 07:36 PM

I want to hunt with My old Bear/Coyote cross breed (Alex) so i want to have enough clearance so that he will not snag the mainline and try to tread water dragging the whole shootin match out to sea.

Lat yeaR he dragges about 20 lbs of plate weights and an entire Gangline along with him as he struggled to bring back a bluebill.

I will want a sinking main line, and then probably about 3 feet on each lead to a decoy. This should allow him to swim through the set without too much trouble.

Hopefully he will be comfortable hunting out of the new boat..... he has always done his retreives from a shorebased set up, and is not really keen on Jumping off of a boat... I am hoping I can bring him up to speed with this new way of hunting.

I got him a dog ladder and am going to get him out to practice soon.

At 10 years old, he is going to need some creative coaxing.

newportfisher · 06-08-2006, 08:37 PM

Never heard of this system before. Can someone let me in on a little more info an this? So do you just carry the line with your decoys, then hook them up when in the field or pond in this case? Do you only use this when hunting sea ducks? Please help me here.
Thanks, Cameorn

duckboy · 06-08-2006, 11:14 PM

Think of it like this.

There is a heavy line (like a clothesline that you'd dry shirts or pants).

On each end of this clothesline is an anchor (I use a 10 lb Weight from a weight set)

Each decoy has about a 1-3 ft line of its own, and a Heavy clip to attach it to the main line.

You just hang the decoy onto the main line.

It makes moving entire spreads easy, or you can tie one end of the main line to your boat blind and hunt out in the deeper water.

I think it is best for seaducking and divers on Big water, since most places a guy will hunt dabblers, the water is less than 15 feet deep.

I got tired of having my decoys each have 20 feet of line.

This will work better.

quackersnacker · 06-09-2006, 05:02 AM

Last time I was "window shopping" at Sportsman's they had premade ganglines. Can't remember the name, style, length ... but they were just hanging on the rack near the decoy line, line crimps... I assume it would be cheaper to build your own though.

baltz526 · 06-09-2006, 05:28 AM

i use one gang line in my large decoy spread when hunting wickiup. it is a big water deal. one other place i have used it is on a culvert, lake on one side irrigation ditch on the other. just ran the line out on the current with half dozen decoys on it. very natural looking, sinking line would have helped

MarshBum · 06-09-2006, 07:14 AM

We use gang lines all the time and it's the only way to go. Makes life much more enjoyable. Picking up takes all of 10 minutes. Either use trash cans (Rubbermaid) to hold your gang lines with decoys still attached or 5 gallon buckets to hold your mainline and droppers neatly coiled.

I could go on forever about this system. We've played with a lot of different designs over the years.

One thing that I've heard helps as far as dogs go... and this is just what I've heard, is to lay out your spread in your back yard. Let you dog run around out there with them just sitting the lawn. He/She might be interested in them at first, but eventually the dog will get bored with them. And, with the lines attached, the dog will understand that decoys mean "tangle". They can grow an aversion to the gang line.

Geoff

duckboy · 06-09-2006, 07:18 AM

Sage advice Geoff.

wdlfbio · 06-09-2006, 03:03 PM

I got my clips from seattle marine. You can order them online. They are also called halibut clips. They make 'em in about 4" and 5"-6". I got the smaller ones and have no problems working with them with gloves on. They also sell tarred lines in lots of diameters and lengths. That would be your main line, it sinks well. I'd go with 4' droppers to be safe. Many of mine are near 3' and I've had the dawg catch 'em a few times. I run about 4# for each anchor and it holds 8-12 dekes fine.

Some guys use a single main line some use a shorter main line and then have several lengths of drop lines. Say your main lines is 50' and you generally set 10 dekes about 5' apart. When hunting in 20' water, you could use your 25-30' droppers off each side. If you go to 40' water, you could use 50-60' droppers, but the same main line. If you only use one very long main line, you'll end up with lots extra when hunting shallow, and maybe not enough when hunting deep.

MarshBum · 06-09-2006, 03:07 PM

Varrying depths always screwed us up.

But now our mainlines have eyes tied at the ends. We then use a seperate anchor line, and adjust the length of the achor line to suite the water. This way, we get to use one main line, one length of droppers, and only adjust one (or two if anchoring both ends) anchor line(s).

I do like the idea of the varrying droppers though. See, ask three hunters the same question, you'll get three great answers, but all different

Geoff

newportfisher · 06-09-2006, 04:22 PM

How do you keep the decoys from floating around nd keep them from just making a one line of decoys?

duckboy · 06-09-2006, 04:23 PM

One line of deeks is aok with the seaducks and divers.

They are used to seeing a line of brothers and sisters... it is aok with them.

Very different gig with puddlers,... mallards and teal and pinners will give you the bird with a long line

Ethical hunter · 06-09-2006, 06:10 PM

Quote:

One line of deeks is aok with the seaducks and divers.

They are used to seeing a line of brothers and sisters... it is aok with them.

Very different gig with puddlers,... mallards and teal and pinners will give you the bird with a long line

occasionally a greenhead will do a fly by over my diver strings and BOOM - bonus mallard!

EH

duckboy · 06-09-2006, 09:01 PM

Nice, Very very nice indeed.

I hear that the occasional (actually pretty rare) Eider gets snookered on Wikiup.

anyone hear about this kind of tale in their lifetime?

waterfowlin101 · 06-10-2006, 07:06 AM

That would be a heck of a treat!!

Jon

baltz526 · 06-10-2006, 07:38 AM

just the one i killed, about 15yrs ago

Bait Bucket · 06-10-2006, 10:34 AM

Back east in the Chesapeake Bay, we always made the mainline out of tarred twisted nylon. I would recommend you get hold of a Barlow catalog. They have the tarred twisted (and braided) line most commonly used my all the bigwater boys back east. They also carry the clips you are looking for about 19 bucks per 50 clips. Watch the dog when he's retrieving in the dropper cords. Sometimes it can get ugly.

Hunt'nFish · 06-12-2006, 10:02 PM

Duckboy,
My deep water sets are as you describe, only the cord from the deke to clip is doubled over and threaded through 3/16 or 1/4 clear PVC tubing to make them tangle free. The line is some stuff called Iron Twine and is avaliable from Fishermans Marine or Englunds. Both of them have the clips as well in bulk and our beaverton GIJoes has the clips as well, Avery I think...or maybe Greenhead.
A $10 folding anchor from Joes, Fishermans or Sportsmans holds it down. Don't worry about the color of the line too much, the clips make it sink out of sight.

Oh I almost forgot. there is a guy in Longview that made mine and sells them on ebay. Check out znapz.com I have his contact info as well.

Baitbucket,
Chesy Bay huh? I saw a bit once on the bay there where they used bullet floats painted black and just threaded them on black nylon rope w/ knots to hold the floats on varied spacings. 3-4 of these 25yd lines floating parallel in the tide looked like a convincing raft of black ducks from a distance. Surprising the sea ducks just locked right in and laid down in them. Stupid ducks. I suppose you wouldn't have to worry about shooting the dekes either!

Gooseman · 08-01-2006, 01:11 PM

Check out these guys.
Haven't ordered anything from them in a while, but usually have decent prices.

http://www.knutsondecoys.com/rigging...apsNclips.html

duckboy · 08-01-2006, 02:31 PM

45 CENTS a foot is too much for me to stomach on the main line rope.

I have a bunch of Nylon braided line, in 1/4 inch diameter that I have dunked in dark exterior laytex paint.... that will have to work for me unless I win the lottery.

Get Bit · 08-01-2006, 08:39 PM

DB,
Sportsmans has the Doctari Gang Lines.

Get Bit

wdlfbio · 08-03-2006, 06:15 PM

There's a SEATTLE MARINE store in settle that carries the large and small halibut clips for $.43-.60 each. They also have treated lined in various diameters and lengths. Their pricing in the best I've found for my seaduck rigs. They also sell NICE SS carabineer style clips that are perfect for attaching to your anchor.