TufLine TufLeader experiment

Author: josh

Category: Kayak fishing tackle

Created on Tuesday, 22 November 2011 18:48

Written by Josh

As reported in the recent write up on our '11 Fraser island kayak fishing trip I now have more reason than ever to be experimenting with leader solutions, determined to minimize instances of large toothy fish biting lures clean from the line. Obviously, paramount here is abraision resistance. Wire sounds like a pretty good solution to this - and often it is - but there are times when it does seem to deter or at least slow down bites (particularly on tuna and mackerel species), such was the case at Fraser for us this year. So at this point I'm willing to try anything to find some sort of work around and I may just have found it in TufLine's new TufLeader.

TufLeader is interesting stuff. It's not a wire, nor is it a mono, yet in many ways acts more like the latter. On the back of the small 5m spool box they are supplied with, TuffLeader is described as: Stainless steel over Spectra fibre core delivers superior strength and bite protection. Smaller diameter than wire and ties like mono.

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure if it really is smaller diameter than certain wire traces of similar breaking strains but what I am certain of is that it's a whole lot easier to work with. I'm not entirely sure if I'd say that it ties like mono either, though it definitely ties really well (I've been tying secure double-uni knots with ease). And its also certainly highly abraision resistant. While I can cut through it with my sheath knife, I have to work at it (small clippers recomended). It's also not at all rigid like wire, so I think might work better with certain lures in jigging and retrieval techniques.

The real beauty of this stuff is that it really is as simple to tie on a new leader of TufLeader as it is heavy duty mono or flurocarbon, so replacing leaders on the fly and making them any length you like is easily and quickly achievable while fishing on the kayak. I am yet to wrangle with any toothies since undertaking the TufLeader experiment, though I'll be running it next to another rod using heavy duty mono for a while and will report back after I have anything conclusive to report.