Home Forums Fishing Freshwater Favorite trout leader?

material for bait trout fishing? What say you? Thanks...

Clear Trilene XL 4 lb test unless the trout were extremely line shy and then I'd drop to 3 lb test. There were days where dropping down made a noticeable difference in the number of hook ups.

Trilene might be considered old skool now with the advent of fluorocarbon line but IMO it works and I wouldn't feel hampered using it.

for clear water nothing beats Maxima ultragreen, 2# for line shy fish, used maxima all the way up to 40# for albacore, its the stuff.

I like Maxima Ultragreen a lot and it's my first choice of leader in many circumstances.

For some reason though I don't think I've ever tried the 2 lb test.

2# might be a little light in streams with larger fish and lots of snags, but I have landed some pretty nice trout on it, a longer, limber rod really helps with busting fish off with the light line. In the super clear streams of northern CA where 1-1.5# fish are the norm, its plenty.

Seaguar InvizX 10# is what I use in the crystal clear Clinch River. Little 18 inchers to the big 30+ inchers are no match for this line. It casts well and is basically invisible. Even 35# Stripers caught in the same river are caught easily once hooked up.

I fish the holston river in tennessee and use 6# viciuos florocarbon. Its not as brittle as most other floro lines. the holston isn't as clear as the clinch and that really says something about the seaguar line if WM70 is using 10# line. I have only used vicious, berkley vanish, stren florocarbon and spiderwire florocast. Vicious is by far the best I have used. I gotta try that seaguar. FLOROCAST SUCKED!

This is what I've settled on. For mountain lake trout, rivers, and even the the Sacramento river delta for stripers. It's worked well for just about every situation I've come across. Except Sturgeon in the Delta

What knots work the best you?

Palomar knot whenever I can use it

I have 3 small spinning reels, two loaded with 4# Maxima ultragreen, the third with 2#.

I mostly stop at 2# but I have a couple of the 20 yard spools of 1# which I save for very small flies. The problem with 1# is that the drags on my fly reels often don't go that low so a fish hitting the line on the reel rather than working line around my feet is usually a lost fish.