"Ron M." wrote in message
oups.com...
Several times, I've been on charters off the Texas coast when we ran
into a school of blackfin tuna, mostly in the 10-30 pound range. What
normally happened was, the crew would throw out a couple handfuls of
sardine chunks, then immediately free-line a whole sardine into the
chum. It would get hit almost instantly, and then they'd hand the rod
to a guest. They used 3 rods at a time; they couldn't have 15 guests
all hooked up at once; it'd be a tangled mess.

The rigs were freelines... just a tuna hook tied directly to the end
of the mono, nothing else.

The problem was, at least half the time the blackfin would bite through
the 50# mono and the crew would have to reel it in, tie on another
hook, etc. They used a HUGE amount of time doing this, sometimes
getting 5 ot 6 biteoffs in a row before finally hooking one.

My question: is there any particular reason why they don't use a fine
wire leader, to prevent so many biteoffs? These tuna were 10-30
pounds, and a 20# leader would be plenty strong and very fine. I don't
know why it wouldn't work, but these guys were seasoned pros, and knew
what they were doing. Any comments out there?

Ron M.


My first guess would be that the leaders might mess with the geometry of the
hook. Put a hook on just mono, and unless you tie a bad knot, the hook will
hang (or move) at a certain angle. Add a stiff leader and that angle might
change, thereby impeding the effectiveness of the hook. You can see a demo
of this by taking a hook with an angled eye and tying a knot to the eye.
Those hooks are made to be snelled, not knotted at the eye, so they won't
hang right with a knot.

Buy yourself a gift - a book called "Hook, Line and Sinker", by Gary Soucie.
It's a fantastic book about terminal tackle - all the things we put at the
end of the line. If you fish a lot, you'll probably find yourself referring
to the book regularly, until it's worn out and you buy another.