Finesse breakoffs - what to change?

[CrankFate]

5 hours ago, TOXIC said:

You are using a leader from braid?  You are overpowering your leader material and exactly why I don't like leaders.  Pressure from fish or hooksets from non-stretch braid to a leader "shocks" the leader material (even more with a shorter leader).  I know many like the braid to leader setup but to me, that is not finesse.  While changing your knot may help, I would not be surprised if you still break off unless you upsize or lengthen your leader.  

Noo000ooo00ooooOooOO

 

The knots will not fail. The trick in that is using a rod that will bend!!! If the rod flexes a lot, the knot shock break doesn’t happen. I have only had a few line breakages in my whole life. 6 or less. 4 of those were on monster bass in Disney world the day I got my PB. I had 4 and 6lb mono that broke 4 times on 4 consecutive bites, before hooking up with my PB up on the 5th, using the guide’s heavier set up. Only one of the 6 was on braid with a mono leader and the leader broke about a foot up from the hook knot because it was nicked because we were fishing in rocks, I hooked a monster 15-20lb fish (not a bass) and took someone else’s advice and set my leverdrag to max shortly before the hookup. I got in three cranks, nearly lost my left arm and then pop—fish gone.  The other was assumed to be a bluefish that broke a nylon leader. That’s literall every line break I’ve had in 40+ years.

 

(((((Many might just say it’s because I catch small fish)))))

 

For breakoffs, IMO, get a lighter, slower rod and thinner stronger line.

[fishindad]

On 5/12/2019 at 12:42 PM, txchaser said:

I've been having a series of breakoffs with bigger fish (not on the hookset) and I'm trying to figure out where to go from here. 

Drag is light enough that the fish are able to spin the drag.

Seems fine under constant pressure like when they are running for deep water. But a head snap/shake gets a breakoff. 

Rod is a M/F spinning rod, so seems to have a decent amount of give. 

I check the leader for nicks/abrasions more regularly, that helped. 

Moved from 6lb blue label to 8lb blue label to 8 lb yo-zuri copolymer (fish-n-fool/uni with 2x through eye), each of those helped some. 

Have been able to boat 4.5-5lb fish with the yo-z, but have lost multiple fish on it. 

 

On one hand I could just upsize again. On the other hand, at some point it seems silly to have a finesse presentation with 10lb line. But perhaps I'm overthinking it. 

 

Two choices in front of me 1) re-tie more often, assuming the terminal knot is getting stressed or 2) just upsize. 

 

Any other alternatives?

As you mentioned, using more than 10lb line with "finesse" small baits and hooks will probably yield significantly less bites. Does the line break at the lure connection, line-to-leader connection, or somewhere else? If I were you, after carefully examining your gear (tip top, line roller, guides, etc) with a Q-tip for nicks or scratches, I would ditch the braid plus leader and go to straight YZ hybrid or quality FC line like Sniper. Eliminate one knot/potential weak point. Properly tied leader knots will hold but rarely at 100% strength compared to no knot. Then use a simple Palomar knot at the lure/hook. If you still get breakoffs, then you either have a ton of toothy critters in your waters (we have pike and muskie) or something is wrong with your knot-tying skills. Eliminate one at a time until you figure out what the cause is.

[txchaser]

14 hours ago, TOXIC said:

You are using a leader from braid? 

Yep. Related I was thinking about whether a rod with a bit more give would help too... if I'm loaded on the rod already, and braid to leader so no give there, and drag is sticky or set too high, and not retying enough, everything has to go right since there's no margin of error.

 

On the line guide comments, two different rods, so probably not that, but worth checking. 

 

I'm really curious to see how smooth the drag startup is, especially after I take it apart and clean/re-grease... And maybe now I can understand the difference between a $50 okuma and a $200 shimano, because I can't tell where else it would be.

 

Thanks again everyone for a lot of interesting feedback and places to look. I'll report back with what I found, and hopefully there's enough here for the next guy to troubleshoot a similar issue.