I have messed around with using fireline as the leader material for spinner rigs. It is a bunch tougher than mono but if you ever get a little tangle on the working end the beads, hooks, and blades get permenently snarled and you’re forced to trash the whole rig. The extra limpness of the line VS. mono or wire is the culprit there.
I’ve found no reason to run flourocarbon on rigs in the river…. or at least no reasons relative to flourocarbon spooking fewer fish. With the generally low visibility levels in the river, flurocarbon doesn’t offer much of a benefit in that regard.
Flourocarbon is quite abrasion resistant though. If you need leader material that will withstand a little abuse, flouro does a good job in that application.
I typically go with a 10 mono… Trilene XT (Green) is one of my favorites and takes abuse well and I’ve NEVER seen an instance where fish in the river were able to detect this line with the result being fewer bites. If I go much lighter than I’m losing fish due to nicked line or from gradual wear from catching small numbers of fish. In my opinion, once I’m running 6# test or smaller, the rate that the line wears out reaches an intolerable level and is totally unjustified given the clarity of the water.
I like hammered silver when running single hook rigs with leeches and hammered brass when pulling double hook rigs with crawlers. JB Lures use to make a spectacular deep cut colorado blade, brass on the front, orange back, that was an absolute killer on the river. I can’t find those anymore and I’m down to my last few blades. I really wish I could dig some of those up. I’ve also had good success with some of the perch or firetiger patterned blades from northland.
I usually stick to sizes #2 -#3 for most applications with leaders running 3′-5′.
Good fishin’,
James Holst
Moving Waters Guide Service
http://www.movingwaters.net
