Blue Sharks Suck

[Big Jay]

Jay- do you crimp the hook to the mono leader or a short wire trace. how does it hold up if the hook does get inside? you make some good points and i may try this out.

Right to the hook.

I am going to post a DIY on mono shark rigs this weekend with pics.

[Double D]

I'd like to hear about some makos landed on mono before I consider switching

[Big Jay]

Don't get me wrong, there's still a lot of unknowns.

When we nailed the whiptail, i was experimenting with 4 rods.

1 was left in strike, 1 was left with barely enough drag to stop the line from peeling out, 1 was half way to strike and the other a little less than that.

The thresher hit the rod left in strike, hook was sent home to the corner of the mouth.

On the other hand, we most likely lost a Mako on our one run off. He took off with it, spit it. As i was reeling it in again he smashed it and took off for the surface, spit again.

It's not perfect but i'll tell you this much...i'd rather dump more run offs than not have them to dump in the first place.

[Deep C]

Well I'll add my two cents on the mono debate. Yeah I have beaten sharks on mono. For that matter my big wahoo at Ma500 a couple years ago was on 80 mono. That being said I have coughed up close to a grand worth of plastic in the pocket at Chub over the years when we didn't get lucky with mono...
Jay we're not talking just 530... 560 hard shell, 600, 700... I have seen the big girl makos go through it like butter... All it takes is once to have me not experiment when chasing money fish. Cable just a couple times has let go on me so its out of the game too. 30+ years of single strand off a wind on is my never fail rig. If it ain't broke I ain't gonna fix it... Today I found a little closer what I was looking for in water but still not right all the way for "my fish"...

Chuck, If I had you out there you could have just fallen overboard and knocked him out landing on him...

[waterman482]

Well I'll add my two cents on the mono debate. Yeah I have beaten sharks on mono. For that matter my big wahoo at Ma500 a couple years ago was on 80 mono. That being said I have coughed up close to a grand worth of plastic in the pocket at Chub over the years when we didn't get lucky with mono...
Jay we're not talking just 530... 560 hard shell, 600, 700... I have seen the big girl makos go through it like butter... All it takes is once to have me not experiment when chasing money fish. Cable just a couple times has let go on me so its out of the game too. 30+ years of single strand off a wind on is my never fail rig. If it ain't broke I ain't gonna fix it... Today I found a little closer what I was looking for in water but still not right all the way for "my fish"...

Chuck, If I had you out there you could have just fallen overboard and knocked him out landing on him...

Maybe you should take some lessons from marty(picker) I'm willing to bet he has caught more sharks than you could lie about and he uses the same shark setup that we use!

Every big girl iver ever seen(Im talking over 400# not these little pups) Has been taken on 400# momoi smoke leader. 800# mainline doesn't work too shabby either and is a proven winner

[Deep C]

Waterman... I've seen pickers rigs. He and I are after all , good friends. Yes you can take them with regularity. I said I have my self. But I've also had a couple go through it like butter. And no I'm not talkin puny 400 pound fish either 800-1000 class would be closer.
Am I gonna risk $100,000 on the outside chance that it could get away or go with the one rig I have NEVER had fail? One time failing is enough to keep me with what works...
Like the 223 round. 5000 shots with no issue. One time is all it took to get me to stop and slow the round down.

Pick uses the mono and does very very well... It makes sense for volume fishing. Cut a hook off and tie a new one. No need for more expensive hardware and the extra time twisting a section of #15 or 19. Not bashing it... But with a healthy chunk of change on the line I'm sticking with what has not ever given me a problem in 30 plus years...

[Deep C]

Ha... Found a new pairof manleys... If any of you catch the plier eatin pile of shit that ate my others, the box of donuts reward though is still on the table...

[ADDfishing]

The mono - electric pulse through wire whatchamacallit idea is interesting... Thanks Jay. The day I mentioned earlier when we cut the blue dogs free, every one of them were on a buddy's circle hook rig with a short section of cable then mono. We went home with exactly 0 of his circle hooks. All my wire leaders with J's were left alone. Three days later, we hung a whip tail using one of his mono rigs. Coincidence??? Possibly. But certainly worth looking in to. I'm too new to all this mess (5-6 years) to even think about having anything that is tried and true to me. I'm all ears until something goes wrong with it.

[Deep C]

Interresting view... The ampulae of lorenzini are sensors on the sharks nose. These attracted to electrical impulse not repelled. Watch a white shark come to a cage. Because its metal it almost forces an exploratory bite. Mono which , as stated I have used and do like for some aplication does not run an electrical current. Wire however does and that can be accelerated by the use of dissimilar metals.
Mako magnet as well as audible frequency also utilizes electrical pulse. I made an observation long ago that a transducer will also draw sharks like crazy when set at 50khz (low frequency).
So with that said there is no logical reason for mono to draw more bites than wire from sharks as a whole. The electrical impulses that draw them however will disuade other species... Thus not the best choice, in fact, poor choice if targeting fish other than shark.
Just for the record last week we had no problem drawing thirty shark bites using wire...

[REELFAST]

I found this post very interesting and wanted to comment as to my thoughts and history of using steel leaders.

About 3 years ago i started using 8' braided cable to 8' single strand 16 wire.

Prior to that i used to use 12' single strand to the hook. I also played around with wind-ons utilizing 400lb mono (12 feet) attached to 10' of single strand #14 wire.

The single strand to the hook was a proven method for me and my crew for about 5 years until we lost a few fish due to kinking wire. We landed many makos and a handful of threshers on this old standby. I decided to switch to the wind-ons when we broke off a good thresh to a tail swipe of the main line on 2 seperate instances.

From then i started using the 400#mono to single strand #14 wire. I liked the idea of the wind-on cause in some instances a leader man was not needed in addition to having the extra security of the heavy 20' top shot of 400# mono. At the time i was solely doing shark charters and it was easier on the crew using the wind-ons. Well..to say the least i got burned again had a nice mako roll onto the top shot and chew through like butter. That was enough to search for a better method.

My current shark rig that i have been using for the last 4 years has been working well for me and my crew. I currently use 8' of braided cable to 8' of single strand #16 wire. I have lost one fish to date with this rig and i hate to speculate size but i have the whole battle on video and it was easly a 10-12 foot mako that god only knows how much she weighed. The failure was not due to the connection it was that the shear weight and size of the fish chewed through the single strand 3 inches above the hook.

Not trying to blow my own horn but in the last 3 years i have won over 500K in shark tournaments and its something i love to do is shark fish.

I do have to say that most of my fishing is done in over 3000 feet of water. The only negative thing i can say about the cable to single strand wire connection is that for whatever the reason..i have not got bit by a thresh in the last 2 years even fishing productive thresher 155-180ft depths. Could it be that the magnetic field is diverting them? possibly?
but i have caught many makos with this technique and by no means are makos diverted by the steel.

Just my 2cents guys. hope it was helpful