I picked up some 90 lb break strength the other day. It says it's knottable, but my test knots aren't working well. Should I go ahead and just get some sleeves? Just curious if anybody has any suggestions for working with it...

Ya aluminium sleeves only.




-Z-

What knots have you tried? Most of the time when I use wire I use a Haywire knot and they rarely ever fail unless I get in a hurry and make a bad knot.

Don't know that knot. I will probably go with sleeves, since they will give me more peace of mind.

I always use the haywire twist, The only time I have had it fail is if the twists are not done correctly, make sure you aren't just wrapping one wire around the other, twist both straids around each other, then finish it off with several barrel wraps. It took me a while to get it right but now I can do it with my eyes closed.

I looked it up, but will that knot hold up to a 200 lb fish?

It will hold up to about 20-30% below the strenth of the leader if done correctly. If you go with crimped connectors your going to be around 50-60% of the strength of the wire.

As someone said, the key is to make sure that both wires are twisting around each other, the tendancy of the wire is for one to twist around the other, and this isn't going to reduce the overall strength considerably.

It takes some practice to get the knot right, and it takes discipline to cut away and start over if it doesn't twist right.

I used to take two pieces of wood and clamp the two ends of the wire between them, then use a dowl to twist the wire @ the loop, then finish off by twisting the end around the wire into a barrel. Now I've had enough practice I get them right 4 out of 5 times.