Lining up for a better leader: avoid losing big fish GIPPSLAND LAKES
Brett Geddes b.geddes@bigpond.com
All anglers have endured the frustration and despair of losing a fish to a busted leader. The culprit is typically assumed to be the snaggy, weedy or rockstrewn environment where many fish live.
BLIND FAITH Most anglers get lazy and fall into repetitive habits and follow the latest cult fad. I’ve been guilty of this too, and if I ever break the rules, it is only to prove those trends right. So I will try crazy and weird techniques or trial homemade lures and investigate all sorts of lines and leaders. As you’d expect, there
talk about how a rarely a trophy 2kg bream will ever reach a landing net when fishing so light. Over the last five or so years I’ve made a point of quizzing all the anglers I know or meet for the first time, about what leaders they use and why. Nowadays, nearly everyone has said they employ the lightest leader possible because “they have to” or it’s what we all do to beat spooky and fussy fish, “all anglers know that!”. I get the fact that when you first take up fishing you have to start somewhere, and following mates or the gun anglers in the media and competition winners is a smart move. After all, they have the experience and have done all the homework, right? Wrong! I’ve now discovered that nearly every one of the very best anglers I know have never experimented with much stronger leader sizes. I always ask anglers how the hell can you say heavy leaders from 4-8kg won’t ever work when
When you beef your leaders up it’s very rare to bust off big bream once they are solidly hooked.
the result of my constant experimentation. With that in mind, in this article I want to give you concrete proof that heavier leaders work. More on that soon. First, let’s look at how this all began. HEAVY BEGINNINGS My initial lightbulb moment of using much stronger leaders happened when I was fly fishing. Over a period of 10 years, in the early 1990s, well before I ever tied on my first hardbody or soft plastic lure, I was totally fixated on fly fishing, mostly for trout. Of course, I started with traditional super fine lines. In fact, I used commercial tapered leaders down to even 1-2lb breaking strain. They are about 10ft long and start
catch rates improve when fishing light, and often praise a light main line or braid as well. I acknowledge that these gun anglers catch ripper fish, but I don’t respect what they declare to be ‘fact’ when they have no proof. So why do I only use
Ben Hotchkins ditched his 4lb leaders and experimented with lines up to 12lb. He said his results were excellent and is now confident using much stronger leaders. However, many anglers are breaking off fish for no other reason than using super light leaders, because they believe it’s essential. I’ve decided to turn this view totally upside down, with the aid of disciplined, rigorous testing and proof from myself and fellow anglers. When I was new to lure fishing many years ago, I fished heavy, tough leaders. Being so green back then, I really didn’t know any different; I thought everyone used those methods. Right from day one my very first luring efforts always involved using mono of at least 5kg. That ultimately progressed to 8kg at times when large bream, bass and estuary perch were continually lost to shreddings in the local timber. At least with 8kg I could lay enough stick on the bigger fish for speedy snag extraction, and I also had the benefit of greater resistance against the line popping and barnacle-wrapped structure. I landed more by-catch too, like thumping flathead, salmon and toothy tailor. Sure, I had (and still do have) a few fish shred me in an instant, and others brick me deep into structure, but I suspect that even 10kg line would hardly improve those encounters. These days I seem to be getting more frustrated that a lot anglers are complaining of busting off fish, and quite possibly for reasons easily fixed. 8
DECEMBER 2021
have been failures, but also plenty of surprising wins. These days there’s a fixed obsession for anglers to fish super light leaders when luring bream. But I also find it carries over to other species like bass, estuary perch, trout, snapper and even flathead or Australian salmon. Look, I know that big bream can be landed on even 1lb leaders with a little skill and a drag set right, and I’ve caught plenty of big fish on light leaders
A double hook-up during a busy day when both anglers caught about 30 bream and a dozen estuary perch all on 12 or 14lb leaders.
Surely no angler thinks that thumping tailor are leader shy? This fish was specifically targeted with a big lure, but you can also catch plenty of bream and big tailor while using a much stronger leader. 4-6kg leaders, you ask? I often get quizzed more on how it can be done! I find it bizarre that nearly all bream anglers think it’s near impossible to hook fish on 5kg+ leaders. I understand
that when you catch your very first 20-30cm bream or maybe bass, estuary perch even flathead all on very light leaders, it’s hard to make a change. We are creatures of habit, and at times for very good reason. When a lure, location, retrieve method or indeed a type of fishing line all produce fish, why fix something that ain’t broken? I’ll never claim to be a gun angler but the one thing I’m very good at and always happy to share is
Perch don’t have teeth to cut leaders but they love living in line-snapping snags. Mick Selzer rarely uses less than 12lb line. when I’ve experimented with them. However, tying lures onto 1-2kg leaders puts a lot of trust in fine lines that really aren’t made for landing 1.5kg bream that live around snags, jetty pylons or other structure. I won’t even
you’ve never tried them? Some anglers even believe that 6lb leaders will seriously hinder their success rate. IS LIGHT FANTASTIC? We all hear and read about how anglers swear by using light leaders, and say
When throwing lures into deep river snags, it pays to have very strong leaders to quickly wrestle fish out of the structure.
off at around 20lb diameter, graduating down to very fine ends. This allows the energy from the fly line to transfer as efficiently as possible through the leader and tippet in order to straighten out light flies for the best presentation. In the early days, I broke these leaders mostly on tree branches, grass tussocks and rocks (rarely on fish!) with hack false casting while trying to learn the trade. So my tapered leaders nearly always shortened up rather quickly and therefore when I eventually caught a ‘fussy’ trout, it was on a 6lb or even 8lb leader. Eventually I got better and hooked trout on 2lb tippets, but busted so many fish off. Eventually I discovered I could catch all my trout on around 6lb leaders and often even up to 10lb. You can see how this discovery directly transferred into my very first lure fishing forays. HARD LINE FACTS So from day one I lure fished, in the view of most anglers, very heavy leaders. I can hear everyone wanting to tell me that my methods will cost me a lot of fish, and specifically bream. Maybe so, but I’ve
