How heavy?

[Stonka]

i have four pound fireline on my 1500 symetre what strength leader should i use?

[Shane]

Depends on the structure you are fishing. I use 4lb nitlon on my 4lb. But not alot of heavy snags around where I fish.

[Stonka]

i mostly fish around the Mitchell river, the Tambo river and the metung jetties (all in east gippsland)

[Shane]

Wouldnt have the foggiest then :D Get a few varying sizes, 4/6/8, sometimes you need to go lighter to get results. But someone from that area should be able to answer your question.

[Superduperman]

Get all 3! 4lb, 6lb and 8lb! I find i use 6lb the most coz it saves having to up the strength if i go fish some structure and on the flats 8lb is overkill IMO

[kamikazeghost]

there are several features in deciding upon the type of poundage of leader you "should" invest in.

If you're going to use leader at 3lb, my suggestion is to use straight fluorocarbon in 2-4lb. But in saying such, some guys will still prefer to have their fireline or braids then leader.

The point of using such a light line class with bream is sometimes related to the sportsangling challenge side of things, but also, probably the more likely truism which I use it for, is related to the finicky nature of bream on occassions especially in clear water. The very light line class allows for decreased "human eye" visibility and does correlate to the fact that the fish has a decreased sightability to the line, as well as drag resistance.

So around pontoons in canal systems where you're unlikely to run into too much "bust off" trouble, these leaders, or straight fluoros can have a great advantage.

6lb fluorocarbon leader is I guess considered a standard leader poundage across all types of structures in general as in general, the size of the bream, will not come too close to testing the breaking strain of the line itself and you can easily fight large bream on 6lb without too many difficulties.

Personally, I don't see any point in going any higher in leader size, unless for one reason only.......... rack fishing where you can use anything up to 16lb fluorocarbon leader so as to just pull those big blue lip 1+kg bream from out of those oyster-encrusted racks. Personally when I'm seriously rack fishing, especially when I venture down to Forster, Yamba, Hawkebury, I use nothing less than 12lb leader and if it sounds heavy, then I guess you'll have to personally experience what bream can really do in those areas.

In essence, a standard 4lb-6lb fluorocarbon leader is sufficient and if you really want to go lighter, my personal suggestion is to use straight fluorocarbon, but I do know some who don't like using straight fluorocarbon.

In terms of preference of leaders, having tested and gone through a few different types myself and in discussion with others, probably the consensus overall the top 3 are your Yamatoyo Razor, Rockfish or Harris; Nitlon; Siglon and the Linesystems is pretty good as well.

I think I've run into a bad batch of Siglon, so unfortunately as it can, it dents your confidence in the line.

Hopefully I've managed to cover the question you've asked and good luck.

[luke_H]

5lb is my preffered leader strength for most types of fishing, il usually go upto 6lb when fishing in areas with pylons, crossbeams etc. i always manage to get these fish out on the 5lb but being landbased the fish then needs to be lifted about 10ft upto where i am and on a frayed 5lb leader it often doesnt go so well, 6lb holds better.
for general river fishing around bridge pylons, rockwalls etc the 5lb is perfect imo and 3lb straight through can be very effective in these low risk areas as kamakaze has already said.
the lighter the leader you can get away with in the area the better i reckon, it equates to more hits, more hookups and generally not to many bust offs, so you end up catching more fish.
first step is getting the fish to hit the lure so i generally think about that, before worrying about how im going to land them on light leaders, afterall a fish lost is better than no fish at all.
hope these ramblings help
cheers
luke

[lightertheif]

Ive been using 20lb fluro carbon and still getting busted off.. i fish amongst pretty heavy structure..

[luke_H]

20lb??? what sort of structure are you fishing.
as i said i can generally get away with 5lb in structure like whats in the background of my avatar, rows and rows of barnicle encrusted pylons.
would love to fish an area where 20lb is neccesary for breaming.

[Fisherman#1]

20lb and still getting busted off!!!!! Try going up line strength to about 8lb so you can really stop those bream when they make a run. Stick with the 20lb leader for now, but if you must go heavier, then go heavier. But get some good quality leader to prevent spooking them.

[luke_H]

6lb braid and 20lb leader you could effectively lock your drag right up and as soon as the fish takes the lure get him on the surface and pole him into the boat, dont give them an inch of drag and you shouldnt get busted off on 10lb let alone 20 imo
dont know where your fishing so i could be wrong:confused:

[grayson. d]

holy cow!! 20lb!!

that mulla in my avatar was taken on 6lb fireline and 20lb leader from under a bridge while lying down on top of the bridge to get the casting angle right!!!

what im getting at is that fireline has an unreal strength, and i have had 20lb leaders pop from doing that exact thing before my braid going. i fish a drag so heavy that my second reels drag washers have been cut up, so braid can take a hell of a lot of strain!!

fishing with a 20lb leader, you could definetly crank the drag up so hard that you will get em flappin on the surface as luke said

anyways give it a try

grayson

[Stonka]

I have got 6lb mono at the moment and i am going to get some 6lb Vanish leader material

[lightertheif]

3 of the 5 40cm+ bream ive caught in the last 8 weeks were hooked using 20 lb leader, the other 2 were on 12lb. I usually fish a locked drag and reef them straight out away from cover, generally works a treat

i believe the fact im using bait is the main reason i can get away with heavy leaders. The line is not constantly being retrieved/ twitched.. creating unnatural vibrations that the fish can feel.

[SOL_LADY]

For my leader I use 8lb Berkley,Vanish.

Along with 6lb Fireline, Braid.

With absolutely no problems at all ;)

Gae.

[Isokaze]

Maybe it's not really related, but I just want to add that, I think the angle you pull the fish, is just as important as how hard you pull the fish.

[Superduperman]

I couldnt agree more! really, unless you hook a BIG bream it's not going to be able to pull much more than 2kgs of drag IMO, and if you can angle your line so that you pull the fish away from snags then you should be fne, I fish 6lb to give a little leeway for dodgy knots etc. I prefer longer rods too so that if need be I can dip the rod tip underwater to avoid the line rubbing of horizontal structure like overhanging rocks or branches.

[Bear]

'i believe the fact im using bait is the main reason i can get away with heavy leaders. The line is not constantly being retrieved/ twitched.. creating unnatural vibrations that the fish can feel.'

Not completely sure what you mean. As for vibrations. One of the more successful lures around, as well as just about every other HB I know, gives off some sort of vibration and they do quite well. I certainly don't think movement\vibrations put bream off.

JMO.

[yellow door 1]

Originally posted by lightertheif
er yeh..... baits out fish lures any day in the swan... im well aware. what with all the preaching and the holier than thou attitude on this forum?

Sorry Dude - I got rid of the offending post. I've never fished the Swan but when the fish are ignoring lures where I fish - they will still climb all over a fresh bait.

And I mean climb all over it. You can go 6 hours without a hit, to 10 bust offs in an hour when switching to bait.

Thats my experience and that is why I alluded to the possibility of (shut down) bream, being easier to catch on bait.

[lightertheif]

bear i always thought that heavier lines/leader will have a negative impact on fishing for bream on lures, if not then i stand corrected....

[luke_H]

heavier leaders do have a negative impact on the number of hits you will get, not because of unnatural vibrations but more because of the fact the fish can generally see a peice of line the thickness of wipper snipper wire coming off the front of the lure or bait, and in the case of baits they arent presented as naturally with thick stiff leaders.
basicly comes down to what you feel confident in using, il always feel more confident using lighter leaders than heavier ones simply because i go by the idea that getting the fish to bite is the first step so worry about landing them once they are on however thats just me.
alot of people dread the thought of losing a big fish after hooked because of light lines etc, thats understandable as theres negatives and positives to using both heavy and light leaders for bream
each to their own
cheers
luke

[Isokaze]

I think the issue here is, stronger leader, being generally thicker (more water drag) and stiffer (less action), will weaken the action of the lure, especially shallow diver or the like, without a wide wobbly action. But, you can always put extra action to the lure, by varying your retrvial technique. There's way to improve your chances to get a fish if you are using heavier leader. Vary jighead size, lure size, retrival speed, how suble/voilent is the jerk. It's a whole package. But I think yeah, lighter leader should be the easiest way to tempt a shy fish.

[Rayman]

Originally posted by lightertheif
i believe the fact im using bait is the main reason i can get away with heavy leaders. The line is not constantly being retrieved/ twitched.. creating unnatural vibrations that the fish can feel.

I think what he means is that when you twitch your lure such that sometimes the line goes from being slack to being under slight tension, the line snaps softly in the water which would seem hardly natural to any bream. The thinner the leader, the less pronounce the effect, as the thin leader essentially cuts through the water like a knife.

If anything that gave off vibrations attracted fish, we could be fishing with sinker and hook and nothing else so long as it gave off some form of vibration.

As to the original question, I choose leader lengths between 3lb and 6lb, depending on fishing pressure (bream finickiness) and structure.

[bushido]

20lb LEADER!!!!!!
you have got to be kidding, I only use 16lb fluro leader for barra and jacks in North QLD, in fact most guys I know only use up to 25lb.

Cheers

[lightertheif]

nah mate no joke, im using 20lb leader in the swan and still getting busted off reguarly.. the bigger bream in the ONE place im using 20lb will not leave cover during the day. The only way to get them is cast at the pylons and let the current wash the bait right into were they are.. basically the line is usually already around a pylon before they even get to it... repetitive casting and retrieving to keep line away results in nil bites from big fish, they also spook after 1 or 2 big bust offs. The leader still cuts through in seconds, the only way is to skull drag them out before that happens. Dont see many people recently posting pics of land based 40+ bream in the swan :) Before anyone replies im not implying this is the only way to get a good bream, nor is it necessary in general. Stonka, the moral of the story is use what best suits your location and preferred method..