Home Forums Birds & Dogs Waterfowl Hey diver hunters

I'm sure many of you who have diver hunted long enough have cursed the heavens at tangled longlines. I tried an experiment and we had some good shooting over it today. I took a fishnet, with 3/4 inch mesh windows, and attached 70 redhead and Bluebill dekes to the net with 8 inch mono leads. The net is attached to window sash weights on each corner on 30 foot lines. The long anchor lines allows the "raft" to move with the wind, and the mono leads allow the dekes to move around like feeding birds. I used a ration of 3:1 front tied to rear tied decoy leads.

When loading into the boat, place the first two weights in the bottom of the boat, and lay the net on the deck in layers, the small mesh windows keep the decoys from tangling. On top of the top layer you put the last two anchors, which will be the first two set out. Then as your boat drifts down wind you "let out" the "layers" of netting and finally the last two weights. I then ran two long lines of a dozen each Blue bills down wind of the "raft". And then put out a string of buffies and cans. Setting up the boat blind just down wind of the tail of the long lines. We smacked a limit of bluebills each and a hand full of buffies, a bonus Can, and rounded out the day with Mallards

were you single anchoring you longlines?

No. 3 pound lead weights on each end

Sounds like you have a good alternative method.

I use a lot more lead then that on my lines. I tend to like to single anchor but even when I double I have 10lb weights.

My leads on the long lines are 3-5 feet, but i kept them short on the net to minimize tangling and give more of a "jerky"movement to simulate birds feeding

It works. Helps to have a shrimp boat buddy or 12..

Those net rigs are popular out in the sounds of NC. The guides that run them really like them

My boat is a 2472 Seaark. The nets i'm using are cheap brown cast nets from walmart. So far i'm sold on the idea, especially for Divers. We had 150 divers pocked up in 10 minutes today. Try doing that with Longlines and not having a tangled mess

How do you keep your dogs from getting caught up in the nets?

i don't have a dog.

Might be a problem for a guy like me with dogs. I still might try it out one day without Lulu.

Sounds interesting. I'm just glad someone is smokin their assez cause we don't have no ducks this season. Worst I remember.

Billy we that day was the best we had

We have a storm system bringing very low temps, anow and high winds sweepind from the NW tonight and tomorrow. I'll be on the lake in the AM