Swivel Conundrum

[Squidnation]

a few years ago while fishing the Pirates Cove Billfish tournment we had a beautiful flat line bite that gave us a decent fight and then just popped off. When the evidence got back to the boat we realized that the snap swivel was open.

Tuna fishing on a buddy's boat we landed 21 yellowfins and 3 came to the boat and gaffed with swivels open.

Fished in CR couple months ago and had a beautiful sailfish to the boat in 5 minutes with an open swivel.

Lastly Alex or Nico lost a striped marlin last week due to an open swivel.

So now the obvious answer is Bill, you were on the boat for all these, sounds like you have a swivel snapping problem.

We I can say for certain that I didn't snap the swivels on the charter boats but I may have on my boat or friends boat.

But I really think these swivels are opening. now i am fairly certain that all the swivels were not of the same make. so what gives. Who has seen this problem more then once? Any explainations?

[Asylum]

Bill I believe we actually released the one with the swivel open. It was one of three larger ones. Nico wired her and when he came up with the leader, handed me the open swivel.

[Roddy Hays]

No idea what the reason is, Bill, but I can tell you the solution.

Don't use snaps. I never have done, and never will. There are much better connections to use than a snap, including crimps, knots and loop-to-loops.

[Robja]

Bill,

We had a similar problem this year fishing in Costa Rica. We got one sail to the boat and it had an open swivel. Several years ago we seemed to have several that came open King fishing. Don't know if it was the age on the swivels or what. I switched to Spro snap swivels after that and haven't had any problems with them. I also use them when I make rigs because they have a high test rating yet are real small.

[clt_capt]

We haven't had an issue with an open snap in a while - 4 or 5 years ago, we started changing out swivels for every trip - or worst case every other. The spros have been good, and so have the Tsunami, and started using the billfisher kroks last year

[WAHOONBOX]

We haven't had an issue with an open snap in a while - 4 or 5 years ago, we started changing out swivels for every trip - or worst case every other. The spros have been good, and so have the Tsunami, and started using the billfisher kroks last year

TIP OF THE DAY RIGHT THERE!!!

[WahooKing]

I do believe I put snap swivels under the most extreme conditions...High speeds...blistering Wahoo strikes...heavy mainline wire, braid and/or mono...and cable shock leaders.

I can not tell you how many snap swivels have opened up or completely broke...Most failures have happened at the snap rather than the swivel...One must take into consideration snap swivels rating...The lb rating is that of the swivel and not the wire on the snap...Also, some companies are better at wire forming than others.

All that being said...In my opinion, the best company at wire forming the snap is Rite Angler...I use all their snap swivels with my application on the high speed troll...I can not remember the last time my customers or myself have had a failure.

Anthony
Ace Fishing Lures

[WhiteMarlin]

Call around...I buy my swivels from a shop in Palm Beach (don't want to say names and piss of advertisers of this site) but they are a center...for fishermen....anyways...they make custom swivels...actually there's a guy in florida that makes em and you can get them at all of the shops down there (including the two across the street)...they make a higher gauge swivel that is actually hard to open..it will hurt your fingers...but these won't open up on ya while fighting a fish...ask specifically for the "hard to open snaps" and you should get what ya need...once your finger gets used to it they won't hurt so bad when opening them...they're all I use...normal swivels will open up....

[Captain Fred Archer]

For absolute safest performance, I go with Roddy. We found making the kinds of connections he speaks of, with the exception of the cat's paws, too time consuming for our regular, day-in, day-out fishing. Quality snap swivels were the easiest, fastest and best for us for that sort of fishing. Tournaments were a different story.

I believe that failing to actually shut the snap before putting a new lure or bait in the water, especially during a hectic, hot bite, and perhaps having excited, not-so-experienced folk doing this accounts for the majority of "open snap cases." This almost never happened on my boats because we simply didn't allow clients to change the lures or baits, no matter what kind of bite was going on, and my crews (I ran two very good mates and that helped in this and other areas) knew that if I saw an open swivel after landing or losing a fish, there'd be hell to pay!

Pretty much the same thing applied to rigging lures. We only trusted our own rigging and never allowed clients to rig our lures. We also had a policy of not allowing people to run their personal lures on the boats without full inspection by the crew. It was pretty shocking how many times we discovered lousy rigging. In those cases, if a customer insisted on fishing his lures, which was quite rare, we re-rigged them our way and showed them how we did it. Tackle failure due to rigging is simply and absolutely not an option as far as I'm concerned.

Snaps breaking is usually a manufacturer issue, although the best snap can break as a result of catching a fish or two on an open one, then continuing to use it. That work hardens the wire fast, embrittles it, and it breaks. This can also happen if you use a snap for too long. Many openings and closings will also cause work hardening of the wire and can lead to breakage. In my experience, that took a long time and many openings when it comes to high quality snaps, but still, we did change them every couple of months or so...never saw a need for more than that.

I am absolutely with Anthony when it comes to Rite Angler componentry, including their snaps. We have had terrific performance with them for decades now and I can't say enough for them. I don't know if it's still the case or not, but in the past they made the snaps for all Sampo snap swivels. The "Tournament Grade" ones with the welded, double rings were the best.

It's like so many other things when it comes to rigging and performance...use the best stuff, do it right and the results are terrific. Do it wrong or sloppily and bad things happen...and the rigger usually blames the component and not himself. Same thing with knots; when they break because they were tied or finished wrong, the knot tyer almost always blames the line, not the knot. That drives the line makers nuts!

Me too.

[The Codfather]

The snaps where you have to twist the line around them, Ive never had one fail. They are bulky and heavy however, and not too good for bait fishing. Ive had the McMahon snaps open up on me trolling, thats fixed with a small dental elactic band around them keeping just enough pressure so they dont pop open.

I also run light drags. Say you have 80 mainline and 130 leader. Assume your weakest crimp is 90%, and the swivel is rated to 200lbs. 80*0.90 is 72lbs, thats the real breaking strain of your system. I set my strike drags at 25%, or 72*0.25, 18lbs. That way the 'full' setting is 24lbs, or 33%. At half the spool out with full drag thats 48lbs or 66%, so thats when we bump it down to strike again, giving us 36lbs, 50%. At a 3/4 to all the line out, decrease the drag even more, probably to 8 or 12lbs, giving you 30-50lbs of drag.

Always run higher rated 'hardware' than your line. It should be the last thing to fail, even with metal fatigue.