[CoachPotato]

On May 2, 7:01*am, Vic Smith wrote:
On Sat, 2 May 2009 06:32:25 -0700 (PDT), wrote:
On May 2, 7:13*am, Vic Smith wrote:
On Fri, 1 May 2009 15:57:26 -0700 (PDT), FishWisher

wrote:

Thursday was calmer and I headed for my honey hole on Suisun Bay -
about 25 miles downrivere. I hammered down the river and across the
bay in pretty lumpy conditions, and tried to fish while the boat
rocked and rolled. I managed one nice sturgeon on the outgo, but he
managed to release himself from the net after my leader broke! He was
probably in the mid-60" range.

Good stuff, Dale.
Figured you would use wire leader. *What's the point of mono leader?

--Vic

Mono is more forgiving, it stretches instead of breaking.

Yeah, but I've never had a steel leader break.
I see leaders as protection from teeth and abrasion.
Quick terminal changes too of course.
Mono gets weakened pretty fast if abraded, beside the sun working on
it. *I replace my mono line pretty often - never keep it more than 3
years. *Sometimes less if it feels weak doing a pull test.
But I use steel leaders practically forever.
Only get rid of them if they get kinked or the snaps get deformed.

--Vic

I prefer mono over metal leaders mainly because of the kinks. And I
can easily make my own leaders with mono (80#) where I can't so easily
(and cheaply) with metal. The leader that broke was well worn and not
the fault of mono but my own dumb fault for even keeping that old
thing so long. I've doubtless learned this lesson in years gone by,
and now I've learned it again. For awhile. Senility can be very
costly!

At least I did have the pleasure of fighting that big ol' sturgeon
clear to the net - and would likely have had to release it anyway as
it may well have been over 66". That's my story and I'm sticking to
it... ;-)

Dale
www.FishWisher.com