[Fishtrap2]

Was told by a guy at Cut Rate (another customer who was in buying stuff) that I was wasting my time trolling soft heads with wire for Wahoo. He said that if I used wired hooks with heat shrink and simply crimped a 200# to 400# mono leader to it, I would be fine as far as dealing with a hoo's teeth and get better action. I have attached a photo, if anyone can offer some insite, I would greatly appreciate it. I always thought 7 strand or heavy single strand wire was a requirement for targeting wahoo on the troll...

The mono on this head is 200# and the pair of hooks are wired together with some really heavy single strand wire. Do I stand a chance or should I re-rig?

Thanks!

 

[Bill Fisher]

expect to lose 50% of your wahoo hook ups along with your lures

 

[Bill Fisher]

expect to lose 50% of your wahoo hook ups along with your lures

that was a conservative estimate.............

and yes,......... you should re-rig if wahoo is your target

and keep the (480#, 7x7, 49-strand) S/S leader short

 

[Ono Loco]

I run 175# 49 strand (about 2' of leader) and have yet to have a failure and this includes a sweet flower gardens meat haul a few months back with a few going 75lbs. In fact not so much a single strand broke or or kinked. We were getting doubles,trips, and quad hook-ups - they didn't seem too leader shy to me..

 

[Fishtrap2]

Thanks guys...that is what I thought. Appreciate the sound advice.

 

[Crossroads]

Consider pinning (small crimp) the lure so it can't slide up the leader if not using wire. If the lure slides up too far, a second Wahoo can strike it during the fight and cut the leader.

 

[MilosMaster]

We rig all of our lures in that manner and catch plenty of wahoo. With one exception earlier this summer, when we got into a wahoo frenzy and 5 lines got cut at once, I can only remember 2 or 3 times in the past 5 years or so that we have had a wahoo cut the line with that setup. Maybe we have just been getting lucky . . .

 

[JohnHumbert]

Small Wahoo

If you're talking 10-20lb wahoo, 200-300# mono will work just fine most of the time. However, a big 'hoo will slice through 600# mono like butter!

In fact, I had a big wahoo (at least that's what we think it was) slice through a RESIN HEAD! That's 1.5 inches of hard resin plastic.

While I have caught a number of nice 'hoos on mono down in Cabo, all you need is one big one to get away to start using wire.

 

[saildgm]

I use the same set up, as does our company boat captain. Last trip on the big boat we had 9 wahoo, all on mono leader. We never lost a fish on that trip and I have never lost a wahoo using 400lb mono leader. Maybe we are lucky?!

 

[Blue N' Brew]

All our rigs are similiar to the one in the picture and we have very rarely (if ever) lost a lure to Wahoo. We even run our islander ballyhoo on #200 pound mono. All our hooksets are with 49 Strand wire.

I agree that you will get better action and your lure will be more attractive to other Pelagics as well.

Chance