I think just about everybody has experienced a bite off, where you reel in just your mono with no hook.
A big kingfish or toothy fish inhaled your entire bait and easily bit through the leader. It is frustrating to think was that a big wahoo that got away, isn't it?
Well, I fish wire leader just about 90% of the time for this reason, I don't want to be guessing and I would rather be tight on fish than reeling up hookless rods. And I strongly beleive I don't get less bites for fishing wire, especially if I'm kite fishing. This is why we fish light wire and small swivels or an albright knot.
Rigging a short trace of wire leader on your rods is the solution to avoiding cut offs.
And believe me, generally you will not give up bites on mahi, tuna, sailfish, marlin and more. Those fish will inhale a small trace of wire just like it wasn't there, well as long as you have a quality bait. While there are exceptions, most of the time you will catch more fish especially if you are targetting king mackerel.
So let's get started, here's what you'll need:
- Size 4 or 5 Wire Leader
- 75lb Spro Swivel or you may use an Albright Knot
- Your choice of hook (Circle, J-Hook, Treble Hook)
1. Start out by cutting about 16 to 24 inches of wire off the supplied wire.
2. Push the wire leader through the eye of your hook
3. Form a loop in you wire by bending each strand of wire over each other and leave about a 6 inch tag end that will act as your barrel wraps in the later steps. Hold the loop in place firmly.
4. Form a 45 degree angle of both strands and get ready to twist both strands of wire around each other.
Note! A big mistake many make is that they wrap the one wire around the other, rather than both jointly around each other. If you don't form that jointed bond, the wire will slip and you will lose fish.
5. Twist both strands of wire around each other 7 times. This is the haywire twist.
6. Now to finish off the twists, we will make about 3 to 4 barrel wraps by wrapping the tag end around the leader tightly. This MUST be tight in order to do the next step. This is simply for finishing the knot. The strength of the knot lies in properly done twist.
7. Once you finish your barrel wraps (TIGHT), we want to cleanly break the tag end off rather than cutting it with pliers. If you cut it with pliers, you will not be able to get it close enough and will leave a very sharp tag end that will end up cutting you. So in order to break off the tag end we make a crank.
First bend the tag end back towards the wire to create a crank.
And now turn the crank in a full circle around the wire. And the tag end will break cleanly at the wire leaving zero tag end.
Here is the finished haywire twist.
Before we go fishing we usually make about 10 to 15 leaders ready to go. Each rod will be pre-rigged as well as a bag full of these leaders so that we may swap out leaders fast after landing fish.
Tight Lines
Captain Mike