Wire leaders for blackfin tuna????

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.

"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.

"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.

Tunas, and their smaller relatives have extremely keen eyesight and won't
hit
a bait with a wire leader. At least that was the thinking years back. Don't
know
if current technology has solved this issue.

Interesting.... I got an email from Mark Sosin. He said blackfins
can't bite through 50# mono. They can't even bite through 20# mono. He
said there were probably other fish in the water biting them off, like
kings - there were some kings being caught - but not the tuna.

Ron M.

"Shortwave Sportfishing" wrote in message
...
On 28 Nov 2005 10:04:20 -0800, "Ron M."
wrote:

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?

Um...they can't bite through mono - most likely there were other fish
around like kings or barracuda. Conventional wisdom years ago was
that you didn't use wire leaders because they had sharp eyesight - eh,
I'm not sure about that. Wire leader has zero stretch and that's the
more likely explanation.

Most nowadays are using Spider wire or other high-tech braids in this
situation - at least up here on the East Coast and I've heard tell
down in Texas/Louisiana.

They're using braids with no leader?

I use braid with a fluorocarbon leader, and a very light drag setting to
accommodate for the lack of stretch in the line.