Big yellow tail & Multipliers

[Fredster]

Hi Guys greetings from the paddle ski side apologies in advance for all the reading.

We target YT in 20 - 40m water here and I've been successful with tail 12- 17kg. For years I've always used grinders with no issue - spheros 6 & 8K Azore 6500, 50 lbs braid FG knot, 0,9 maxima leader 9m long, 1m x 1mm hook snoot. No problems; 100% knot strength with FG.

I've started using some multipliers on the ski (20/40, SL175, Tor 30) and it just always seems to end in tears.

First I just replicated braid and leader setup i always used and didn't like the thumbing the line and handling aspects of thin braid.
Changed to mono, mostly 0,5mm awa shima big game. Liked the forgiving soft characteristics when fighting big geelbek for example, but every proper tail ive hooked has popped the leader knot. Slim beauty single strand 10 turns up 10 down, consistent 11 kg plus knot strength which is ok since line is prob rated 13-14kg.
But 11kg is very close to maxed out drag on my multipliers....

WHERE TO from here PLEASE?

OPtion 1 use 80 - 120 lbs braid mainline because its thick and soft and i know my leader knot is bullet proof.?
OPtion 2 Heavy line all the way to the swivel, like maxima 0,85mm and forget about separate leader?
Option 3 increase the mono mainline to 0,58 or 0,6mm?

Don't want to go wind-on's or bimini, because all of the above options can be tied on the ski if needed.

Thank you look forwrd to your input on how you do it.
cheers F

 

[IWyk]

I would stick with the tried and trusted leader knots.

Using 0.5mm Awa Shima I would make a Bimini(with some practice easy to tie) or alternatively a spiders hitch, short section of double line(I actually prefer three legs here), tied to a 0.7 or 0.8 mm, using double figure of eight on the thicker line and a three turn figure of eight on the double(triple) line.

Personally I think your leader is too thick for the mainline and I am not familiar with the knot you mention.

I would use:

0.5 mainline- 0.7 leader
0.55 mainline- 0.8 leader

If you tie your leader properly when rigging up it should be very seldom that you need to keep making knots on the ski after you have launched(unless a fish reefs you of course).

Not sure how heavy you set your drags but the norm would be about 1/3 of breaking strain which with 0.5mm would be approximately 4 kg-4.5kg. Which should be more than enough.

 

[Fredster]

hi IWyk,
thank you for the reply.
Those big YT are bastards, with their strength, stamina and determination to reef you, hence our use of such heavy leaders and drag settings, which i suppose are the obvious reason for failure.
Drags are set to 8 or 9kgs - usually to the max - otherwise you can't turn and hold the fish.
here's a pic of a well-tensioned leader knot.

So if i up the mainline to like 0,58, the mainline /leader will be a bit better in proportion, and should give me a few more (sufficient?) kilos in reserve between drag setting & breaking point?

 

[IWyk]

Well in my opinion a +-12.5kg mainline with a knot anything less than 100%(only knot I know with 100% of line breaking strain is the Bimini done correctly) will fail every time on the leader with a drag setting of 9kg!

With a decent YFT and the way you are fishing your set-up this will not work. You probably never had issues before because you never reached these drag settings with the grinders you where using.

You need to beef up your kit if you want to basically lock and hold them I would suggest.

The 20/40 will also not last with this treatment it is a graphite framed reel and not built for this. No experience with SL175 or tor30.

If you want to fish 9kg drags the way you do you will most probably need to jack up to 0.65 mainline at least.

With those drag settings line capacity would not be too much of an issue but you would most definitely need to jack up on your equipment.

I have never fished like this but seems like you are taking a knife to a gun fight.

Hopefully somebody with experience regarding this will comment. Will be interesting to hear.

Awa Shima is excellent line by the way.

Good luck, I will be keeping my eye on this one to see what the guy's come up with.

 

[EugeneC]

By your own description you've stepped down from 50lb braid to 14kg mono. That's your answer right there - assuming you were maxing the drag on your spheros, you would have been applying around 9kg drag to a mainline with b/s of around 22kg or more, depending on the braid you used. You can get away with that a lot of the time, because you're well within the strength limit of the braid, whereas applying the same drag to a 14kg b/s mainline....well you do the math.

Personally my first choice would be to stick to the grinder - if it was working fine, why change? If you insist on using a multiplier, I would then go for what you called option 1, but I would also heed Iwyk's advice about the 20/40.

 

[Fredster]

thanks to Eugene & IWyk for your input, based on your feedback I've made some progress.

Grinders will probably remain my go-to for YTail specific setups; having started down this multiplier path, I'm still gonna persevere with it. On mono, despite shying away from the bimini for years, i've tested it and will use it on all mono applications going forward. I can tie it over my knee in less than a minute ad consistently get over 14 - 15kg where i was only getting 11 before. With that, I'll leave the 0,5mm awa shima on the 20/40 and the small daiwa, and use them for geelbek, and if i do pick up a tail, i think i may be in with a shot, or at least a much better chance.

I'll load the Torium with a heavier mono like 0,58 or 0,6mm with Bimini and give that a shot as a YT specific rig, and see how that plays out. If it performs ok, I'll try the heavy braid alternative when its time to change line. And if it doesn't perform that well, I'll just move to the thick braid sooner.

Thanks for your help guys, sealine rocks.
Although we are heading towards the winter doldrums now, hope to post some fish pics test results soon.

The biminis in the pic all tested between late 14 to late 15 kgs and didn't break on the knot. In every instance the line failed where it was wound around a dowel/ arbor to test.

 

[IWyk]

 

[Dellas]

Spider hitch met n 6 turn yucatan knot is vir my die maklikste.

Daar is nie n beter knoop as die knoop wat jy die beste kan knoop nie.Knoop ek nou my tong :

Kies een en oefen hom tot hy perfek is.

 

[grootvis]

Ha.......multipliers are fantastic for tail....

From the kayak, 50lbs hmmmm. If it were me, i would stick with 50lbs braid, 80lbs flourocarbon leader, FG knot.

You might know better than me, but you also dont want heavier, you actually want something that will fail if really need be, if you get caught on a reef, trying to break free could only result in line loss, and potentially dangerous situation. Now, we know the calibre of those tail, but try use the lightestyou can go that will keep those those fish on, if that makes sense, your reels should be ok.

The 50lbs braid, will cut through the mono if you get stuck. If you use thicker braid it wont.

Thats my take! Happy fishing..

 

[Dr halibut hoffman]

The guys use .55 sufix white abrasion mono for spinning, you could use .60 on boat reel but the guys I fish with say you must pull that fish till you are about to puke and then some and your line or knots cant give.. they use mainline doubled and a four turn (sometimes 3) centuari to a three turn centuari on leader line. Fish a 1mm leader that is somewhere around 2 metres long as a guess, I just stretch my arms and a bit, and then tie that to your trace/swivel etc.. I use a knot I was taught by the specialists for my terminal connections, in my gallery, and it works for my swivel and hook connection, landed all my PB's on it even my PB tuna which almost pulled me into the deep blue. Hook snood if it is shallow I'll put 1.2mm if the last fish made fun of me otherwise 1mm minimum.

I'm fishing grootvisses old saltist 40h with carbon washers and the drag locked is not enough for the big girls but works, the reel can crank if you just need to wind him on and when drag is not enough you must hold the line on the grip, pump, let go, wind and hold the line again and don't give him and inch haha..

The ous and ladies that fish these knots/setup pull fish each season that would put us all to shame and it works for them for last 30 odd years and since I started using it and I got my braid up to scratch I've started landing the larger fish or at least some of them. Braid is now 65lb mainline/80lb braid leader/1.2mm mono leader on top for spinning, sometimes 1mm if windy or bottom fishing 65lb mainline to 1mm with FG but I'm banned from using braid for bottom fishing haha ja as I cut everyone on mono off when we have double-ups but hey I get invited so I fish mono and shut up.