What size leader?

[ReelBroke]

I ‘m using 150 to 220# seaguar bait fishing for giants 400 to 900lbs on 130 class reels. Haven’t had any problems over the past 10+ years with that set up. Boated a mid 800lb on 180# seaguar past season under an hour & the fluorocarbon looked great after. So keep your line size down, no need for the over kill unless you have bills working the area & plan on getting one.

[sushi42]

Lighter leader in lbs. = more bites period. Can you catch tuna on 300# leaders? SURE! I was a comm. tuna guy years ago and have caught em' all on just about everything imaginable! Let's look at blue dye #_. This had two purposes when we were first asked to use baits dyed in blue. Guess what, after all of the scientific research, it was learned that a natural bait without dye not only caught more fish but also had less birds on hooks too.

Now again, with all of the fishing pressure these fish receive today and considering that the longliners are usually fishing all alone(less pressure) I believe that lighter leaders are very big asset when six guys are out for 12-20 hours. You want to eat right?

[Captain Michael Buffington]

Lighter leader in lbs. = more bites period. Can you catch tuna on 300# leaders? SURE! I was a comm. tuna guy years ago and have caught em' all on just about everything imaginable! Let's look at blue dye #_. This had two purposes when we were first asked to use baits dyed in blue. Guess what, after all of the scientific research, it was learned that a natural bait without dye not only caught more fish but also had less birds on hooks too.

Now again, with all of the fishing pressure these fish receive today and considering that the longliners are usually fishing all alone(less pressure) I believe that lighter leaders are very big asset when six guys are out for 12-20 hours. You want to eat right?

and to go further I would say that I have seen high pressure areas no matter the species of fish being sought that go nuclear with the right tide, moon, bait situation, area, ect. where you could get there a$$ on rope. I think the longliners(my theory, theory only)spend more time with wet hooks and therefore are in the water when the conditions come together.

When it comes down to it success in fishing is based on a mindset but carried out by "tricks" learned here there and everywhere and one of the biggest ones for me with tuna whether it's live bait or chunks is being able to adapt my fluoro to the conditions at the moment. I mean I may start out with 100lb when they are just all over it and slowly switch to 80 and then 60 and thats usually as far as I go with tuna but I've done 30 and 40 on medium fish. The same for tarpon. That same thing works in reverse as well. Start off small and get them to bite nails and give them the rope.

Mike

[Deep C]

also, #60 or #80 Moimoi

not to highjack the thread but out of curiousity whats everyone use for sword rigs? I was moderately successful with 200lb but had one memorable breakoff that has me thinking about up'ing it.

I'm 60 Sufix ...

On swords usually 200 gets the nod but I have gone to 300 when thats all I have laying around with not much noticable difference...

[Captain Greg Sears]

Believe it or not?: Ask a diver to try testing braid and tell us if he can see that better than mono. I used a fish tank and I think the braid looked less obvious than flouro. Last year we caught a number of bluefin using braid as the leader. It sucks to leader braid by hand! we used it because the fish where biting and we didn't have time to do anything but tie a hook on. I also think a Hot dog would have worked that day. Next year I am trying a banana rigged with a Skirt using clothesline, oh yea dip it in cheese wiz. I know a guy who caught one on a piece of Taffy (Air Head) he made it into a slugo. I also heard a story about a squid bar made of plastic bananas that caught a lot of fish. There are also a number of strange objects we have found in fish. Lets hear your Believe it or not story.

[bigfish4me]

Ask yourself this question......how many times have you mixed in a lighter outfit into the spread....and how many times was that outfit the one that got piled on by a bigger fish? We were on an overnight chunking trip with Trey from over under.....the yellow fin bite was extremely picky and the only way they were getting bit was by scaling down to 60 lb floro.......when we finally set up to chunk we didn get the 4th line out before the first three were screaming....pulled one hook, busted off another....and stayed on the 3rd fish for over 3 hrs.....everyone in the pic took a crack at him....and we finally put the steel into a 320lb bluefin....on 60 lb floro.

Another example.....finishing up an overnighter on the overunder again.....were were about to head for the barn, they were squaring away the pit and low and behold the smalles outfit out....a penn intl 16s gets piled on, smallest out fit out gets the bite.....my cousin stayed on that fish for about an hour and a half before we boated that fish......the extra hour and a half let the weather window we had slam shut as well and we took a pounding on the way back.

[tool box]

60-80lbs florocarbon