SW leaders
Posted: Sun Mar 24, 2019 2:54 am
Hi Gary,
I was reading your excellent post on baby tarpon and I have a few questions and thoughts on similarities with some of the problems I face here.
I haven’t seen SL12S, but I use B10S in 1 and 1/0 for most of my Toman fishing. Are Tarpon comsidered to be “leader shy”?
When I started fishing for Toman (Giant Snakehead) I used 20lb tippet (plus wire) but I was losing all the big fish to snags. So I went to 30lb and lost a huge fish to a snag. So I went to 40lb with 30lb wire. 1 in 10 fish bite clean through 30lb wire (fuck knows how). So I jumped to 50lb tippet and 40lb wire.
Overkill? Maybe. But I want to land the big ones and I’m only constrained by the breaking point of the fly line/weakness of the hook. That’s why I have this direct rod pointing technique. I can apply 10Kg of stopping force to a Giant Snakehead with this tackle. I’ve measured pulls of over 10Kg using a set of scales (in fact this is how I discovered that SA manufacture some sinking lines on 22lb core and how I cannot use these lines here).
With Gourami I couldn’t do this however. They eat dry flies around size 10 I was fishing .22 mono (claims to be 7.2kg) and lost 9 out of 10 fish to snags. That’s why I went to braid/Spectra tippets. Diameter for diameter I can fish 20-25lb tippet that is thinner than 8lb mono, only it’s drawback is that it has colour. I tried a lot of experiments with different colours and found black is the best. I would have no reservations at all in trying black braid instead of clear mono for streamer fishing with any species. Gourami are a fussy species and I’m using braid with dries. It would be interesting to try 50lb braid on Tarpon (but if it’s an 8WT flyline the braid will need to be around 35lbs - with this stuff the flyline is in danger of being the weak point).
I know it’s a bit different here but in a fishery where the difference between a no-fish day and an amazing day is one fish landed it’s really important to have the strongest terminal tackle I can realistically get away with. Maybe I can send you a braided Leader to try?
Cheers, Paul
I was reading your excellent post on baby tarpon and I have a few questions and thoughts on similarities with some of the problems I face here.
I haven’t seen SL12S, but I use B10S in 1 and 1/0 for most of my Toman fishing. Are Tarpon comsidered to be “leader shy”?
When I started fishing for Toman (Giant Snakehead) I used 20lb tippet (plus wire) but I was losing all the big fish to snags. So I went to 30lb and lost a huge fish to a snag. So I went to 40lb with 30lb wire. 1 in 10 fish bite clean through 30lb wire (fuck knows how). So I jumped to 50lb tippet and 40lb wire.
Overkill? Maybe. But I want to land the big ones and I’m only constrained by the breaking point of the fly line/weakness of the hook. That’s why I have this direct rod pointing technique. I can apply 10Kg of stopping force to a Giant Snakehead with this tackle. I’ve measured pulls of over 10Kg using a set of scales (in fact this is how I discovered that SA manufacture some sinking lines on 22lb core and how I cannot use these lines here).
With Gourami I couldn’t do this however. They eat dry flies around size 10 I was fishing .22 mono (claims to be 7.2kg) and lost 9 out of 10 fish to snags. That’s why I went to braid/Spectra tippets. Diameter for diameter I can fish 20-25lb tippet that is thinner than 8lb mono, only it’s drawback is that it has colour. I tried a lot of experiments with different colours and found black is the best. I would have no reservations at all in trying black braid instead of clear mono for streamer fishing with any species. Gourami are a fussy species and I’m using braid with dries. It would be interesting to try 50lb braid on Tarpon (but if it’s an 8WT flyline the braid will need to be around 35lbs - with this stuff the flyline is in danger of being the weak point).
I know it’s a bit different here but in a fishery where the difference between a no-fish day and an amazing day is one fish landed it’s really important to have the strongest terminal tackle I can realistically get away with. Maybe I can send you a braided Leader to try?
Cheers, Paul