Homemade sucker harness

I’m going on a Muskie trip at the end of October and I was thinking about making my own sucker harness. I have a bunch of 130lb fluorocarbon leader material and I thought it would be a good idea to try and make a few. I noticed though that most sucker harnesses are steel. Is flouro a good idea or not worth it?
If so what kind and where should get the rest of the components such as swivels, snaps, and hooks?

Here is a fluoro sucker harness. I would buy one and then reverse engineer it if you want to make your own. That is what I always do – use theirs to build your own. Should save a few bucks I would expect. Looks like they want $16 for one at Thorne Bros.

http://www.thornebros.com/shop/pc/Shumway-Clip-N-Go-Sucker-Harness-Fluorocarbon-c1314.htm

Flouro is risky business for sucker rigs. I’d stick with wire.

john23 wrote:

Flouro is risky business for sucker rigs. I’d stick with wire.

Can you expand on that? What makes it more risky/ less risky than using flouro in general? Many folks use a flouro leader with good results. What makes a sucker rig any different?

im with john23…… personally I would stick with wire. they can bite through flouro easy especially when its actually in there mouth

While flouro is definitely tooth resistant, it’s not tooth proof like wire. You know it’s going in the mouth with a sucker, and the hooksets with suckers are above and beyond what you’d normally do with a bait.

I run a ton of sucker quick strikes for walleyes in the winter using only 30# fluoro and have found it to be very durable dealing with plenty of large pike that we run into early season around weedlines. I know for a fact that the fluoro gets hit a LOT more for walleyes versus but I’m not a muskie guy so I can’t say for sure if they there will be any difference between wire or fluoro. IMO I would say that 130# should not be an issue.

Something else that I think you should consider would be to try “bridling” your suckers and using a circle hook. It’s a very common practice in saltwater and I’ve played around with it a bit on Mille Lacs chasing big pike. It allows your bait to swim much more freely and even allows you to slowly troll since the bait can swim freely. You can find lots of examples with a quick search on youtube.

Will

I’ll probably make a few flouro ones just to try it out. I have plenty of wire ones. Like Will said though my previous experience with flouro is that it gets hit more often than wire but I wasn’t sure about it because I haven’t seen many flouro sucker harnesses for musky.
I’ll see if I can make a few and maybe post a picture of my results.
I’ll have to check out the “bridling” Will, not quite familiar with that. Sounds like a good alternative because we will be trolling 14-20″ suckers.

steve-demars wrote:

Here is a fluoro sucker harness. I would buy one and then reverse engineer it if you want to make your own. That is what I always do – use theirs to build your own. Should save a few bucks I would expect. Looks like they want $16 for one at Thorne Bros.

http://www.thornebros.com/shop/pc/Shumway-Clip-N-Go-Sucker-Harness-Fluorocarbon-c1314.htm

This is the hottest sucker rig for muskie guys right now. It allows you to bridle the sucker through the snoot and the hooks are bent in such a way that they protrude properly from the side of the sucker.

You can buy one and try to reverse engineer it, but I don’t know where you’d get the clip that goes through the snoot.

Notice that the part that will be in the muskies mouth are wire. The leader to it is fluorocarbon. Remember in WI you must use a quickstrike rig on live baits over 8 inches or a non offset circle hook.

Mwal