Got my first shot at anchor bay on Monday. Ran into mobes at the launch which was cool. Adam hodges and I bounced around exploring the bay, we got about 10 follows and a couple short strikes. We had the most action on burts and hellhounds. Got to see mobes get a beautiful fish, congrats. Shortly after I had a solid hit, I set the hook and the line went limp. 2 seconds later my burt floated back to the surface and the 100# mono leader was cut clean with almost no effort. Time to switch the steel.
Yup, any hard jerkbait style baits should always be fished on wire, fish swipe wildy in front of them at times and like to hit those baits head first, they can and will cut mono! I caught a 43" this year up north that gagged on a 9" suick head first, the tail of the bait looked pretty goofy sticking straight out of its mouth like a cigar, I have no doubt that fish coulda cut a flouro leader the way it was hooked and shook his head.
I've seen a 50"er eat a 10" Red October Tube whole and immediately cut through a perfect piece of 130# Flourocarbon. She must have hit the leader with her teeth just right. She was flopping around the surface after the break off trying to spit the tube/hooks and just couldn't. It was a crazy site to see a 50" Muskie unpinned thrashing on the surface trying to throw the bait. She finally went down and hopefully she dislodged all of it. The only time I would ever use Mono or Flourocarbon for a Jerbait/Glider is for saltwater (Tarpon/snook/Redfish). Otherwise for Muskie it's usually 174# wire (no swivel) for conventional gear and 40-60# fliexible wire bite for Fly. I've been using wire on pretty much most of my Muskie Rods. The fish don't care on clear bodies of water like LSC so they certainly won't care on stained water. For now, if I use Flourocarbon it's 150# minimum.
52
26