Preventing Crow’s Nests in Your Line

A crow’s nest is what you call a tangle of line that forms right at the reel. This is caused by the line being twisted as you cast and drift over and over and can be a major pain in the neck. If you were to hook a fish while this was happening you would have no chance of ever landing it, and would certainly end up having to break the line. I was recently out fishing for steelhead using a float set up on my spinning reel, and I picked up a great tip from a friend to prevent this from happening. He watched me untangle my line repeatedly at the spool where a crow’s nest kept forming for a good couple of hours when he let me in on a little trick to stop this. It is one simple extra step you can take when you are setting up your float. All you need to do is put a swivel above the float so that you are using two swivels instead of just one. This will prevent your line from twisting.

Steelhead Float Fishing – Preventing Tangles and Line Twist

• tie a swivel to the line coming from your reel

• tie another length of line to the swivel (length will vary with desired fishing depth)

• attach the float and an appropriate amount of weight

• tie a second swivel to the line

• tie on your leader and an appropriate amount of weight

• tie on your hook

Using this method will help you spend more time fishing and less time untangling your line. It is also very helpful to have good quality line.

Prevent Fishing Line Tangles

Aside from rigging your line properly when Float Fishing, there are a few other things you can do to prevent your line from tangling.

• Ensure you are changing your line at least on an annual basis.  The more you fish, the more often you should be changing your line.
• Start with a good quality line such as those available from Suffix, Berkley and Daiwa.
• Avoid reeling in backwards.  This can be one of the easiest ways to tangle your line.  Use your reel lock to prevent reverse movement of your reel.
• When trolling spoons, always use a two way swivel, or a snap swivel to reduce the amount of twist on your line.