Living where I do, I don't have many opportunities to fish for Pike....plenty of smallmouth/walleye opportunities though....In the past when I have come up to the BW, I have used either "tiger wire" or 30# mason hard mono....both work, but have their negatives as well.  Lately I've been reading of people using 50-60# flourocarbon leaders with success...Anyone have any experience w/this?  What sort of knot would you use?  Any other ideas for pike leaders and/or bite tippets?

Mike

mastertangler wrote on Mar 12^th, 2011 at 1:59am:

MT,
Very funny!!! Afterwards we will feast on the Pike and the carps and the breakfast cereals!  Since this thread is not part of monthly fishing tip, I hope you don't mind me adding my two cents.   

Anywho! Since my late spring trip last year, I have been using 20 Lb. test tieable wire (american fishing wire). Its thin, flexible wire you can tie regular knots with. I found it in the flyfishing section of the cabela's store.

I mainly use nylon coated wire. haywire twist the wire to attach the fly and melt the nylon with a lighter. This is the approach a lot of big name guys use - like Larry Dahlberg. On occasion I will also use a light wire leader, that you would use with spinning gear. The problem with them is they kink so easy, then your presentation suffers. I also sometimes use single strand wire - especially if chasing saltwater stuff like barracudas that have such good eyesight.

I've used fluoro in the past and have had good luck as well. So you can see I don't have one set approach. One thing about Fluorocarbon is that smaller pike - say 2-7 pounds, can shred it unless its 80-100lb stuff. With big pike and muskies, guys are having good luck (including professional muskie guides) with 60lb fluoro. I've found Seagar to be by far the best. The smaller pike have much sharper teeth. use back to back uni knots to connect the leader to your tippet. Use a loop knot to connect the fluoro to the fly. If interested in fly fishing for muskies, this is an awesome blog - the flies are deadly and interesting approaches/info:

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Hope this helps.

Moonman.

Thanks for the help guys!

Mike