[ChromeFever]

I am having one heck of a time trying to land king salmon on my two hander this year? Using a sage 9140 with a midspey line on it. I am fishing with tips and using a straight 4-5' 14lb floro for the tippet right of the sink tip. I have not had many problems hooking fish but I have yet to land one this year. I keep breaking them off? Previously I would chase kings with a 9wt one hander and didnt seem to have this problem. So I am wondering what type of tippet material you guys are using to land those huge kings in the PNW?

 

[BobK]

Probably...

Probably your problem lies in the knots. The "secret" to good knots in fluoro is wet 'em well when tying, and pull 'em tight with a "jerk".

Fluoro is very susceptible to friction burns and breakage unless these steps are taken. I use fluoro all the time and love it, but until I learned this, I thought the stuff was useless.

One other note - I don't use Berkley's Vanish. It just seems to fail on me, especially in colder weather. I have heard the same from others.

BobK

 

[Hammer]

25 pound maxima green has worked in the past,havn't taken a king on a two hander yet,guess i better get on it*****:eyecrazy:

 

[ChromeFever]

Kings and Tippet

I have been using fluoro for a couple years and never had any problems with it. Fortunately the fly shop where I purchase the stuff at gave me the tip on the proper way to tie knots with this stuff and until now I have never had a problem? But for some reason these kings keep breaking me off. Sometimes it is at the knot but other times it is somewhere in the middle of the tippet. I may have to go to a stronger tippet size and see what happens?

 

[BigDave]

After breaking a couple off on Monday I started checking my tippet a little more regularly. After a bit of trial and error I realized that everytime I got hung up on the bottom I was nicking the line a bit. These are how the breaks had occured. After that I kept a close eye on the tippet and stopped breaking fish off.

Seems simple but it worked for me

 

[Rick J]

Fishing northern Calif/Southern Oregon (Smith and the Chetco) with conventional fly rods I use green or clear maxima and have rarely if ever gone above 10# test and often use 8# and have had no problems breaking tippets - sure on occasion they will break me off, but you can apply extreme pressure with this stuff!

 

[pescaphile]

If the fish are hooked in the jaw (no snaggle tooth problem), 15# Maxima should be plenty for use on a fly rod. No more the 20#, you're just not going to apply forces great enough to warrant stronger tippet if using a fly rod.

pescaphile

 

[fredaevans]

Old .02 cents worth here but try shifting to

Flo Carbon line rather than the leader material. Keith Jackson sent me several spools (different line weights) with which I build my leaders (the butt section is still good old Max. main line).

The line material vs. the leader material is stiffer, stronger and far easier to tie good knots. Ditto on the how-to on the knot comment above. I use a triple surg. and IF the knot comes out looking like a 'blood knot' it takes a truck to take it apart. If it comes out looking like a 'ball' you're toast. Snip and retie.

The F/C main line I use is called Silver Thread, don't know who manufactures same but sure makes good leaders. I've beached fall kings to 20# pounds on 'tippets' as low as 8#'s with this stuff recently.
fae

 

[Gardener]

Remember that the effect of abrasion is likely to be much more marked on fluorocarbon than conventional mono of the same test. Because fluoro is thinner, the same size of nick in a leader will reduce the diameter, and hence the breaking strain, by a greater proportion of the stated test.

When fishing deep in spring and autumn over here, many people use a mimimum of 40-45mm diameter nylon (about 20-25lbs test in conventional mono), not because there is any chance of breaking thinner line on a straight pull, but because heavier stuff can suffer a bit of abrasion and still retain a reasonable breaking strain. 10lb test might be more than enough for a straight pull, but fish don't always fight fair!