I'm struggling to see the point of such a short leader Mr X?
In my world leaders are primarily for absorbing the shock of the cast, so need to go a good number of turns round the spool to be of any use.
They are also used to provide a bit of a stretch buffer against the non-stretch braid, in which case 6ft is going to be fairly useless too because its not long enough to stretch much. Then there is the rubbing aspect, but you're using lighter mono than your braid so I can't see why you're bothering at all?
I don't when plugging, find its totally unnecessary, I like the strength of using 20 or 30lbs braid and thats negated if using a 15lbs or lighter mono leader so fish the braid straight through.
You shouldn't need a bait clip at all. Try stopping the line coming off the spool just before the lot hits the water, that will straighten the line out and flip the lure ahead of your weight/ball as it hits the water, so no tangles.
Multiplier for beach fishing and light boat at reasonable cost? I'd say Penn 525GS. 7000's are fine but very slow retrieve.
Oops, I probably used the wrong terminology. I'm not talking about a
shock leader, I'm taking about the hook length (tippet/trace?). I originally wondered why anybody would add mono to the end of their braid -- I'm pretty sure Foxfish suggested it early in this thread & I noticed Mike Ladle does too -- it didn't make sense to me either. So I originally tied braid directly to the lure (via a clip) but I found several problems with it:
1. if the lure gets caught, then you can loose a lot of expensive braid. This is a bigger problem with a small reel, because what is left on the spool might not be enough to continue.
2. The trebles will sometimes get caught in the braid - a pain to deal with & damaging to the thin braid.
3. The thin braid was easily damaged on rock (esp. before I switched to 30lb).
4. Ultra-thin 30lb braid is pretty hard to break if it catches. If you cut it, you loose a lot of expensive braid.
So, for lures, I normally use some fancy 0.30mm/15lb mono - which is (supposedly) 3x thicker and hopefully more resistant to abrasion & hooks than the braid. If the lures gets stuck or the line gets worn, hopefully it is the mono that will break first. Mike Ladle uses a similar set up as a "rubbing trace" (he's recently written of moving to a 30lb mono rubbing trace for larger tropical fish); Henry Gilbey also uses a 30lb mono trace at the end of his braid for Bass. I find that reassuring but I suppose I needed to find out for myself. My reason for using 30lb whiplash is not because I need 30lb BS but because the lower BS version had
very poor abrasion resistance - while the 30lb version is still only a fraction of the diameter of most other braids (and I have limited spool capacity with the 2500 reel). It has worked very well for me so far. I do sometimes wonder if 15lb mono is too heavy or too light - so I figure there is a good chance is just about right. Using a very fine line (like Whiplash) is supposed to improve casting by reducing wind-resistance/drag -- but you'd know all about that.
I'm thinking I don't need a shock leader currently. Here my reasoning:
a. they are normally recommended when casting more than 2oz (my rod is only rated to 60g - 2oz).
b. the rule of thumb I heard is 10lb for each oz of weight cast. My rod is rated for 2oz and I'm using 30lb line -- so I already have 10lb spare (although obviously practically no shock absorption in Dyneema -- so perhaps it doesn't count?).
c. I usually cast 18-32g, only rarely 40g or more (although I suspect I will try heavier lures this year).
Re. stopping the line - good idea. I often do that but not always. Can't recall if I did that with the powerball - quite possibly not. I think part of the problem was that the line to the eel had been coiled in a plastic bag for some time & came out all kinked up
. I believe the hook came out of the ball ok, the trouble was with the mono which was all tangled when it came in. I didn't have the patience at the time to untangle it or work on it, I immediately switched back to a regular lure & continued fishing.
Sounds like I've got several things to try with the powerball:
* cast smoothly
* consider using a bait hook on main-line, so ball is at end of line
* stop the line at the ball hit the water (to avoid tangle at the reel & ensure the hook breaks free)
* try a shorter hook trace - maybe 1m to start with
* deal with the line kinking (use low memory mono or make the trace up on the beach rather than preparing it & storing)
Something I'm noticing with sea fishing that I hadn't expected is that you often come across problems & then look for different ways to solve it. I'm beginning to see where some of these weird & wonderful techniques and rigs have evolved. I don't recall coarse fishing being like that -- perhaps because we mainly fish one type of water and the techniques used were quite well established. One of the big mysteries to me when I started was was type of line to use -- I was amazed by the range of answers I got, just walking along Chesil one evening; there are obviously many ways to skin this cat.
