Article by Capt. Mark Sampson
You don’t have to be a shark fisherman to need the knowledge of how to make and work with wire leaders. You don’t need to be a blue fisherman, king or Spanish mackerel fisherman or a wahoo fisherman to have that need. You just have to be a saltwater fisherman and yet every season I encounter anglers who spend a lot of time fishing and don’t have a clue how to set up a bite-proof leader if they suddenly find themselves in a situation where they need to add a piece of wire between their hook and line.
Turn the calendar back a few decades and there was a lot more wire being used by offshore anglers. The standard white marlin ballyhoo rig was a 6-foot length of single strand #9 wire with a 9/0 needle eye hook and blue marlin were targeted with big squids or mackerel sewn onto 10 to 12-feet of #12 wire. Maybe there could have been more fish caught if folks knew then what they do today about catching billfish, tuna and dolphin on monofilament leaders, but back then wire was everything and a lot of fish were caught on it. These days, unless there is a wahoo bite going on, about the only wire you’re likely to find in an offshore angler’s bait cooler would be the copper wire used to hold ballyhoo on the hooks.
But because no one knows when an opportunity might suddenly pop up, providing them with an unexpected chance to land something unique, something big or something with serious teeth, saltwater anglers should always be prepared with not only a little bit of wire stashed away in their tackle box, but also the knowledge and ability to turn it into an effective rig.
Wire comes in two basic forms, either “single strand” which, as its name suggests, is one single strand of wire, or “multi strand”, also known as “cable, which is a bunch of tiny strands of wire twisted or woven together. Both of these types of wire have their pros and cons and each have variations in design and features.
Because it’s made of many strands of very thin wire, multi strand cable leader is typically very flexible and almost impossible to kink. In fact, some cable is so flexible that it can actually be tied in a knot to fasten it to hooks or swivels rather than using crimps. Cable leader is typically available in breaking strengths from 20 lbs. on up to something you could use on a trailer winch.
Cable leader tends to be thicker in diameter than single strand wire of similar breaking strength, so it is more likely to be used when there is little concern about the fish spooking from the sight of the leader. Because it doesn’t kink, cable leader is also a good choice for anglers who are doing a lot of casting or are fishing in situations such as in the surf or in strong currents where their terminal tackle will be tumbled around a lot.
Besides the large diameter, another down-side of cable is that it’s pretty labor intensive to build into a leader. Working with cable requires good cutters, crimpers, crimping sleeves of the right size, a decent work area and enough uninterrupted time to get it all done, which isn’t usually available on a beach, boat, or pier. Also, by the time you get done buying the cable, the crimps and the tools, cable leader tends to be a bit pricey compared to other alternatives. Cable leader that can be tied instead of crimped reduces some of the work but it’s only available in light-pound tests so it’s not an option for big fish anglers.
Cable leader is also available with a plastic coating over it which makes it a little easier to handle but that’s about the only advantage I’m aware of. The down-side of plastic coating is that when a fish rakes its teeth across it, the coating is often shredded, and even though the wire might still be as strong as ever, the leader becomes such a frayed-up mess that it needs to be replaced. Sometimes this happens after just one fish! The coating also adds to the diameter of the wire without adding strength so it makes it more visible. I’m not a big fan of plastic coated cable.
Single strand stainless steel wire is a different animal altogether, and using it is about as simple as it comes for anglers who know how to do the haywire twist. No, the haywire twist is not some kind of country dance. It’s a way to twist a permanent loop at the end of a piece of single strand wire. That loop can be used to attach a hook or barrel swivel to a leader or to provide a place to attach a snap swivel from the end of a fishing line to the leader. Single stand is not too pricey, has a relatively thin diameter and with a pair of wire cutters being the only tool needed, is quick and easy to rig while fishing.
Catch a fish or two on this wire and the single strand closest to the hook or lure might get a bit bent or curled up and unfit to be reused as is. Fortunately, because it’s so easy to work with, a mangled length of single strand can often be simply bent back into shape, or if the damaged area represents only a few inches of wire above the hook, it can be cut away and the leader quickly twisted back on the hook.
However, the primary drawback to single strand wire is that it if you get a loop in it, and that loop pulls tight, it will kink and that kink will reduce the breaking strength of the wire so dramatically that it is almost assured to break. For this reason, single strand is best used in applications such as trolling or other types of fishing where casting, or a lot of jostling about of the terminal tackle, does not occur.
A number, rather than a breaking strength, typically references the different sizes of single strand wire with the higher number being the thicker and stronger wire. For modest size offshore fish such as wahoo, medium size sharks, king mackerel and big bluefish, a #9 wire is a pretty standard size. For big sharks, #12 wire would be more appropriate and for huge sharks some anglers will jump up to #15 wire. For smaller fish such as Spanish mackerel or small bluefish, or when it seems that bigger fish are possibly spooking away from their leaders, anglers can jump down to #5 or #7 wire. While the thinner wire is certainly less visible, it is also much more flexible and, therefore, much easier to kink, so anglers must pay close attention to how it’s holding up as they go through their fishing day.
As I mentioned before, the “haywire twist” is used to make loops and connections in single strand wire. To properly work with single strand wire, anglers MUST learn how to properly twist this connection. On the back of most packs of single strand wire are instructions of how to make the twist which is basically just a matter of twisting the two wires around each other (in the way a wire coat hanger is twisted) about five times, and then finishing it off by twisting one wire around the other about three times and then breaking off the tag end. The important thing to remember is that the holding power of the twist is in the two wires both being twisted around each other. The “barrel wraps” at the end where one wire is wrapped around the other looks pretty, but has no holding power. It’s a common mistake to see anglers who don’t know better twist only barrel wraps and think they’ve made a strong connection until they hook a fish and it all unravels.
Another very common mistake is when someone finishes the haywire twist by cutting-off rather than breaking-off the extra tag end of the wire. No matter how good your cutters are, you will never cut it off close enough that you won’t have a small sharp bit of wire projecting from the last barrel wrap, and that little burr is guaranteed to tear-up someone’s hand sometime in the life of that leader. To properly finish a haywire twist, anglers should always “break” the tag end off by putting a 90-degree bend in it and then folding it over back and forth against the leader until it snaps off flush.
There’s another type of single strand leader that I’ve been using for a long time that I’m surprised hasn’t become more popular, particularly among light tackle anglers. What I’m referring to is wire made from titanium rather than stainless steel. As you can imagine, titanium wire is not cheap, so expect to pay $15 to $30 for 10 or 15-foot spools in breaking strengths from 12 to 75 lb. test. But for certain applications it’s worth the expense and a little goes a long way. The advantages to titanium wire is it’s very thin for it’s breaking strength and it’s very difficult to kink or even take a permanent bend, so it’s not uncommon to catch multiple fish on it and the wire is just as straight as when you started. Because it’s so thin titanium wire will sometimes fool clever fish that might otherwise be spooked away by thicker wire. The characteristics that make titanium wire difficult to kink also means that you cannot use a haywire twist for connections. Instead, a simple clinch knot is all that’s needed to make the attachment. We use this wire a lot for light tackle fishing and whenever we need wire when fly-fishing.
Because what they typically pursue doesn’t have the dentures to get through their mono or fluorocarbon leaders, a lot of anglers might fish an entire season without the need for wire on the end of their line. However, because on any give day “you never know” what might belly up to your smorgasbord, it’s always good to have both the knowledge and the equipment needed to put some good steel in the face of any sharp toothed creature that happens along.
Capt. Mark Sampson is an outdoor writer and captain of the charter boat, “Fish Finder”, docked at the Ocean City Fishing Center
