Pike / Muskie Flurocarbon leader ?'s

I think I’m going to make up some Flurocarbon leaders for my Trip to Canada this summer. Does anyone here currently make their own Fluro Muskie leaders? I have a few questions. Do you Tie, Crimp, or Both the snap and swivel? From my research some prefer one over the other and their reasons are all over the place. As someone new to tying them I’m kind of leaning towards doing both. A knot plus a Crimp. It may be overkill but I figure better safe than sorry. I’d hate to lose the Pike of a lifetime over a poorly tied leader knot. What Length do you tie the leaders. What lb test do you use> ( I’m leaning towards 125 ) We tend to throw lots of bulldogs and glide style baits while there. Thanks in advance for all of your reply’s

125 lb test?

Bring some solid wire leader for the glide baits.

I make my own fluoro leaders for pike and muskies. For muskies I use 125-300 lb test depending on what baits i plan on throwing on them.

For pike i use 80 or 100 lb test fluorocarbon for leader material.

I only crimp my leaders and do not tie knots since i feel you can not effectively tie a knot with high quality & high break strength fluorocarbon.

When crimping fluorocarbon, remember that a double barrel crimp is best. A single barrel crimp will cut into the fluorocarbon and weaken it.

mwal wrote:

Bring some solid wire leader for the glide baits.

I’ve always heard that Fluro leaders tangle a lot on glide baits, But after 6 or 7 days of fishing almost all Fluro leaders in Canada last summer I found that not to be all that true. I do own a Ton Of stiff Wire leaders just in case it does become a problem.

130 lb fluoro and use crimps, no knot. There’s no need for a knot if you make a good crimp using the correct hardware and tools.

For whatever reason muskie fishermen get the warm fuzzy feeling from knotted leaders and many think knots are necessary/best. Saltwater fishermen are putting more pressure on lighter test leaders and you’ll never see anything but crimps in salt.

I agree with only use crimp and no knots. 12” in length for casting and 36” in length for trolling. A fluorocarbon leader will fail every cast depending how erratic you are jerking a glide bait and what bait it is.

Tuma wrote:

I agree with only use crimp and no knots. 12” in length for casting and 36” in length for trolling. A fluorocarbon leader will fail every cast depending how erratic you are jerking a glide bait and what bait it is.

Yes, especially when using larger lures with a wider glide to them. I also like to use solid welded rings on my solid wire leaders instead of the fast snap clips, as i have had muskies open up the fast snap clips when they inhale a bait right and leave me without a lure.

I’ve been using fluoro leaders for about 5 years on pike. Mostly spro 80# and have a few homemade at 30#.

Length: 8″-12″ depending on your preference

Test: I have never had an issue using the 80# and not sure why I would need to go heavier. I would be interested to understand the 130# recommendations from others.

My homemade 30# is for a specialty purpose. Basically expensive or hard to find crank baits where I’m after both walleye and toothy friends.

Crimping for me so far and successful. However I want to be able to learn a good knot for 30#-50# for some quick on water setups.

Sorry, I run limited gliders and haven’t thrown much on fluoro.

I don’t mean to thread jack this thread so one quick answer will do, but myself and a buddy started muskie fishing for the first time last fall. Started by using ploppers and bucktails. Then when it got cold, pulled suckers. We used wire leaders the whole time. I was under the impression that you pretty much always needed that wire leader so you wouldn’t get broken off? Are the benefits of fluoro just better action on the lures?

mahtofire14 wrote:

I don’t mean to thread jack this thread so one quick answer will do, but myself and a buddy started <em class=”ido-tag-em”>muskie fishing for the first time last fall. Started by using ploppers and bucktails. Then when it got cold, pulled suckers. We used wire leaders the whole time. I was under the impression that you pretty much always needed that wire leader so you wouldn’t get broken off? Are the benefits of fluoro just better action on the lures?

Durability… Fluoro leaders don’t kink like wire and 1 leader will last for many fish whereas wire leaders are usually trashed after a fish or 2.

patk wrote:

Test: I have never had an issue using the 80# and not sure why I would need to go heavier. I would be interested to understand the 130# recommendations from others.

I can only speak for myself but my recommendation of 130 lb came from fishing muskies. The OP is taking a pike specific trip to Canada so I made the assumption he would catch a few fish the same size as the average muskie caught.

FWIW I’ve seen a 130 lb stealth brand fluoro leader chomped right in half by a muskie that inhaled a dawg. I use 180 lb for baits prone to being inhaled now.

tswoboda wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>mahtofire14 wrote:</div>
I don’t mean to thread jack this thread so one quick answer will do, but myself and a buddy started <em class=”ido-tag-em”>muskie fishing for the first time last fall. Started by using ploppers and bucktails. Then when it got cold, pulled suckers. We used wire leaders the whole time. I was under the impression that you pretty much always needed that wire leader so you wouldn’t get broken off? Are the benefits of fluoro just better action on the lures?

Durability… Fluoro leaders don’t kink like wire and 1 leader will last for many fish whereas wire leaders are usually trashed after a fish or 2.

Thanks, sorry for the thread jacking.

I use ande mono leader for salt and freshwater. It’s a hard mono. A fraction of the price of flouro. For braid to mono I like an fg knot. I like 6 foot or longer leaders as they help with casting. Lefty’s loop knot for glidebaits. If I’m using a swivel I’ll use a three turn uni. I typically use 100 lb leaders.
I’ve never seen anyone that casts lures in the salt crimp. More commonly they use shock leaders which is easy to knot even above 130lb.

patk wrote:

I’ve been using fluoro leaders for about 5 years on pike. Mostly spro 80# and have a few homemade at 30#.

Length: 8″-12″ depending on your preference

Test: I have never had an issue using the 80# and not sure why I would need to go heavier. I would be interested to understand the 130# recommendations from others.

My homemade 30# is for a specialty purpose. Basically expensive or hard to find crank baits where I’m after both walleye and toothy friends.
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A couple of questions here because I fish some lakes with bass, walleye and pike so I need to run fluoro leaders just so I don’t get bit off by the pike. Most of the pike aren’t trophy class but some in the mid-30’s. I run a 30# fluoro leader with a trilene knot without any issues. I just ran this same setup fishing saltwater and was able to horse in some large bonita and snapper without any issues with the know.

Are you guys concerned about the knots pulling out? I haven’t seen it happen on any floro I run from 6# up to 30# with trilene knots. Second, it seems like 30# will handle some pretty large pike but where do you draw the line on going heavier?

Any leader 60 lb or under is no problem to tie a good knot. Extra care is needed for leader 80 lb and over. Set the knot with as much pressure as possible.

I’ve never had a problem using flouro leaders with glide baits. 14 inch 130-150lb test.

I use 130 to 180 pound test flourocarbon leaders, with a double barreled crimp. Put a mushroom tag on the and of the leader with a lighter and pull tight to the sleeve before crimping. To me, adding a knot to a correctly crimped leader seems unnecessary. Kinda like wearing both a belt and suspenders.

If you’re going to crimp, use a high-quality crimping tool. There’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. Plenty of how-to videos on YouTube.

On the business end, I use Stay-Lock snaps in 200 pound test, but a good buddy had a large musky break one during battle last summer. They aren’t as foolproof as using a high-quality, musky split ring at the connection point as described by Joe Bucher.

Years ago, when flourocarbon first came on the scene, I used 80 pound test; that is, until I had a massive fish bite through it while fishing a Suick on the north shore of Mille Lacs. I up-sized to 200 pound fluorocarbon, thinking I had the problem licked. Unfortunately, a 45 incher later proved me wrong, biting me off halfway up the leader on the hook set. Some would say flourocarbon leader material is not safe to use for muskies due to the potential for bite off’s. Guess what? I’ve also lost fish using steel leaders, not from a bite off, but rather unseen metal fatigue in the loops and a couple other reasons.

Done correctly, I feel flourocarbon has many advantages over wire, even for use with jerk baits.

mahtofire14 wrote:

I don’t mean to thread jack this thread so one quick answer will do, but myself and a buddy started <em class=”ido-tag-em”>muskie fishing for the first time last fall. Started by using ploppers and bucktails. Then when it got cold, pulled suckers. We used wire leaders the whole time. I was under the impression that you pretty much always needed that wire leader so you wouldn’t get broken off? Are the benefits of fluoro just better action on the lures?

Something else not mentioned is when a pike or musky gator rolls and wraps itself in line. If you’re using fluoro the damage to the fish is usually minimal, but with wire that’s going to leave a massive scar on the fish at the very least.

A drawback to fluoro is that on lakes like Minnetonka that are covered in zebra mussels you can get your leader knicked up just hitting a rock or ripping through weeds before you ever get any kind of fish. I still think the benefits of fluoro outweigh the drawbacks though. If you’re on Facebook, Pete Maina just did a video about leaders you might be interested in too.

To add to my original post. What Style/Brand of Snap and swivel should I use. What Lb. size is needed. We catch a decent amount of Pike in the 40″+ class each trip so I want to be sure to use the best components possible. There would be nothing worse than to lose the fish of a lifetime over a few $ savings on cheaper components.

fishthumper wrote:

To add to my original post. What Style/Brand of Snap and swivel should I use. What Lb. size is needed. We catch a decent amount of Pike in the 40″+ class each trip so I want to be sure to use the best components possible. There would be nothing worse than to lose the fish of a lifetime over a few $ savings on cheaper components.

Size 4 or 5 Stringease Sta-Lok Snap.

If you’re only throwing bulldawgs and gliders then my opinion is there is no need for a swivel, so just use a welded ring.

If you might throw some bucktails or baits that will spin then use a size 5 ball bearing swivel. Make sure the swivel has welded rings and not split rings.

I would recommend a size 4.5 Stringease Stay-Lock snap as it is a nice middle ground snap. the size 5 can get very big for certain pike lures.

80-100 lb test Seaguar Blue label fluorocarbon line.

AFW (American Fishing Wire) make great high strength swivels and double barrel crimps and crimping tools.

The biggest thing to remember when crimping is making sure you have the right size crimps otherwise you will not be able to get them tight enough and your line will slide right out.

You can buy premade leaders at THORNE Brothers. They have 80 lb and 130 lb. Much easier than a $90 spool of flouro and $150 for a crimper.
If your using glide baits your better off tying a fg knot from braid to flouro/mono. The weight of the rings or swivels effect lure action. The fg knot with a lefty loop knot will give better action. The fg is also twice as strong as tying braid to swivel.
This is what Larry Dahlberg uses.