I saw this on the Drop Shot Forum, What do the guy

[Nick]

I saw this on the Drop Shot Forum, What do the guys think is the best length and thickness of your leader for all round shore angling? And what type of knot do you use to join your main line and leader?Do you use a Bimini Twist?

Secondly, can some one explain the issue of using a braided backing? Purpose and what type? Ive often heard this referd to on ESA.

Thanks

Nick

 

 

[B8FISH]

Dropshot-  Flourocarbon 0.35mm. 1-1.2m long.

Knot- Flouro a 3 loop figure of eight, braid needs minimum 8 loops on figure of eight or use "surgeon Knot".

 

The braid as backing that you hear on ESA is for Rock n Surf fishing and pertains to increasing the line capacity of the spool, because braid is about 0.18mm for 50lb.

 

 

[Nick]

I need the info regarding Rock and surf. Thanks

 

 

[MickJack]

Braided backing is used to give you 600 to 800 metres of line, in case you hook into a runaway beast, like a gig BlackTip, or an oversized Sandie you can't stop!!!

If a reel spool can fit, say, 300 metres of .45 line :

Put 300 metres of braid (with same or even less break rating), which is much thinner, and you can then fill up with 200 metres of the mono, giving you half a Km of line to stop a fish.

There are places in Transkei where you need 1000m, because you sometimes have to climb back up and over the mountain to follow the shark!

Leader length=twice your rod length+1m.

I don't use bimini any more.....the new lines (like giant abr. and doubleX) seem to be fine with the double fig8 join or

the Albright.

 

[Mohammad]

Nick wrote:

I saw this on the Drop Shot Forum, What do the guys think is the best length and thickness of your leader for all round shore angling? And what type of knot do you use to join your main line and leader?Do you use a Bimini Twist?

Secondly, can some one explain the issue of using a braided backing? Purpose and what type? Ive often heard this referd to on ESA.

Thanks

Nick

 

Howzit Nick.

Here goes, when fishing with leader for edibles, 0.65 to 0.80 is advisable, depending on your conditions. If you fishing on rocky grounds 0.80 is the way to go. For shark fishing, anything from 0.80 - 1.2mm. Again, rocky grounds thicker leader. An all round good leader to use is 0.8mm.

Ps: when fishing with leader, make sure your eyes on your rod are big enough to handle the knot. The lenght of the leader is usually between 7 - 9m. 9m is the max you can use in competitions.

Now to the knot. The bimini twist is the prefered knot to use due to it's spring action. With that the figure of 8 or spyker knot or even the albright knot. I use any of the 3.

Braid is a sticky topic.....

The purpose of braid is so that you can maximise the amount of line on you reel. Eg: a standard 0.45 monofilament line would be in the region of 30lbs. If you use kingfisher braid for the same line strenght the thickness would be about 0.26mm (0.26mm = 30lbs), half that of monofilament. The more expensive braids like berkley whiplash are thinner in diameter for the same strenght (0.1mm = 30lbs), but much more expensive.

Kingfisher 30lb braid (0.26mm) = +/- R450 per 600m

Berkley whiplash 30lb braid (0.1mm) = +/- R650.00 per 600m

I use to get 1800m of berkley whiplash on my Saltist 50 with 200m 0.47 Daiwa tornament. 2000m of line on a reel is impressive.

Beware though, if you don't reel on your braid tight and level onto your spool, you can get a vibration on your reel when casting and this can seriously affect your reel (bearings, spool, etc).

Hope this helps.

Mohammad

 

 

[Nick]

Wow, thanks guys. That is a great help.

Dont think Ill be going for that braid just yet, it seems pretty pricey but I guess quality cost.

Thanks again

Nick