Can you avoid the teeth?

At the river from shore couple days ago and having typical lights out session on the SMB tossing jig and ripple minnow to riprap, then hook into very nice northern/muskie, 36″+, saw it give a few big headshakes in the shallows after hookset then it darted off to the depths. Playing tug and forth for about 30 seconds or so and felt that dreaded scrape across the mouth as jig moved to other side, telling me the jig aint sitting on the lip, but inside mouth and being only 8# Sensation, its not looking good. Let the drag a lil loose but then she started into the current and no way can that happen bc then shes gone, cant chase on this particular riprap its pretty tough going even without fighting a fish. Then of course put the screw into er a bit and snap!

Anything to do in this instance? Can’t really think of much except poor luck. Usually would let the drag loose and chase it down river. Had this happen few times now, with one instance could’ve been line getting nicked on rocks, but 2 for sure was the teeth. Always check my line and retie as necessary. Lines are good, no chinks in eyelets or reels.

Sometimes those teeth overrules all…if not, the power of just a few tail swish will put so much shock on the line, it’s just a feathered line break.

With mono there isn’t much you can do. That said, fluorocarbon leaders are very tooth resistant.

john23 wrote:

With mono there isn’t much you can do. That said, fluorocarbon leaders are very tooth resistant.

If it was a lake I’d throw one on no problem. River gets snaggy and once you strech that flouro out its compromised.

Up on Rainy I tie up some 6-8″ 30lb fluoro to baits I can’t afford to lose.

This is not 100% fool proof but I’ve seen 30″ fish have the line across the teeth and still landed them. Got the tip from Chris Granrud back when he was active on IDO.

For jigs, I just take my chances and cross my fingers. Could do some type of larger than 8# fluoro leader attached to your 8# Sensation but not sure if that will cost you fish overall.