I have been having a serious problem as of this past week, while surf fishing for shark il look at my rod and see that the line went slack all of a sudden, reel it in and my line has been cut way before the leader, I'm using 85lb braid with 60lb mono topshot, I typically run a 20ft leader, 15ft 400lb mono and 5ft wire, can somebody please give me their opinion on why this is happening, I got cut off 3 times yesterday within 2hrs. Every line I get back in is a clean cut too, no abrasion on the line near the cut. A theory of mine is that a school of smacks swim buy and hit the line with their teeth. Either this or some diver out there is swimmin around with scissors, someone please help

smacks would be my guess.i'v had them hit silver swivels and cut me off before.how are you attaching your leader to your mainline?

Im assuming by smacks you mean Spanish mackerel? Had them do the same to me fishing off the jetty, just bite the line in the middle. I think they just swim around with their mouths open biting.

I've tried crimping and tying the line to the leader to no avail

What is being cut, the braid or mono?

How new is the braid?

Sand and debris in the water will damage braid easily, although Smacks are probably the suspects.

I got about 400yds of new 85lb braid topped off with about 100yds of 60lb mono, it's always being cut somewhere in the mono the braid is fine