Replies

• Lostconch Posts: 1,111 Officer

  March 2019 #2

  2 problems with wire on artificial. Decreased strokes and MORE lures lost from Mack's in particular striking at the connection between wire and mono or floro. Swivels are even worse. My solution has been switch to longer shanked single hooks so you may not get cutoff once the fish is hooked 

  0 · Share on TwitterShare on Facebook
• 1outlaw Posts: 1,877 Captain

  March 2019 #3

  Risk the cut offs! I believe your catch ratio will take a huge hit with the clear water we have.

  Jason :USA

  0 · Share on TwitterShare on Facebook
• jpscott1 Posts: 30 Deckhand

  March 2019 #4

  Thanks guys.  You have confirmed my thoughts!  No wire.

  0 · Share on TwitterShare on Facebook
• Paucan6005 Posts: 95 Deckhand

  March 2019 #5

  Absolutely. Long shank hooks. Fluorocarbon a bit heavier ..

  0 · Share on TwitterShare on Facebook
• Golfn1 Posts: 47 Greenhorn

  March 2019 #6

  If you’re not doing it all ready. Reel as fast as you can when throwing to a school of mackerel. Rod tip down and burn it !  I find I loose less this way than any other retrieve and I 2nd above long shank hooks. Good luck !!

  0 · Share on TwitterShare on Facebook
• polliwog Posts: 355 Deckhand

  March 2019 #7

  forget the wire, use heavier tippet.  I use 50# for snook and you still can't always prevent some brake offs.  You have to have some luck with big fish sometimes.

  0 · Share on TwitterShare on Facebook
• lemaymiami Posts: 4,853 Captain

  March 2019 #8

  We only use wire - when tossing big plugs at sharks (and we use older plugs since they're going to get shredded....). 
  
  I love it when a soft plastic or Gulp tailed jig is lost to a mackeral - since that alerts us that they're around... Where we fish out of Flamingo macks will nail a simple popping bug once you locate them and the bug stays attached while the head gets shredded by mr. sharpteeth...  Great fun when macks invade the many rivers that drain into the Gulf coast north and south of the Shark river area....

  Tight Lines
  Bob LeMay
  (954) 435-5666

  0 · Share on TwitterShare on Facebook
• andrewthe1 Posts: 801 Officer

  March 2019 #9

  wire is "trending" right now with snook fisherman i see on instgram, guys like dave justice have been using for years and think low light and or stained water doesnt make much difference. i have never tried it....

  we need more internet money

  0 · Share on TwitterShare on Facebook
• lemaymiami Posts: 4,853 Captain

  March 2019 #10

  Over the years we've had quite a few big snook (some pushing 20lbs...) that picked up a fresh ladyfish chunk that was meant for a shark... When fish are hungry they never notice a wire leader.... but as I've already said no wire with lures since it reduces the number of bites you get (unless you're tossing lures at big sharks (blacktips, lemons, bulls in my area - lots and lots of them, as big as they get and in less than six feet of water most days.....).

  Tight Lines
  Bob LeMay
  (954) 435-5666

  0 · Share on TwitterShare on Facebook
• polliwog Posts: 355 Deckhand

  March 2019 #11

  My response was for fishing in broad daylight and clear water use  Floro,  at night or dirty water I doubt it makes much difference,especially with bait.  If you are fishing dock lights at night don't use wire with plugs.

  0 · Share on TwitterShare on Facebook
• Bobber Posts: 943 Officer

  March 2019 #12

  Back before the big DDT kill off of snook in the 60's around Marco, the guides trolled ballyhoo on wire and did very well at it. The thinking was that the hoo looked like needlefish which snook hate because they eat the snooks eggs

  0 · Share on TwitterShare on Facebook
• tjensen Posts: 358 Deckhand

  March 2019 #13

  " DDT kill off of snook in the 60's around Marco,"

  I would like to learn more about this. I've never heard of this before. Where can I find some history about this?
  

  0 · Share on TwitterShare on Facebook
• mcsnook Posts: 175 Deckhand

  March 2019 #14

  What I’ve done is use a silver spoon with a trailing treble hook. The spoon itself acts as protection for the Fluoro leader. I’ve caught many many barracuda with out a cutoff. 

  0 · Share on TwitterShare on Facebook
• Bobber Posts: 943 Officer

  March 2019 #15

  tjensen said:

  " DDT kill off of snook in the 60's around Marco,"

  I would like to learn more about this. I've never heard of this before. Where can I find some history about this?
  

  Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" is a good place to start.

  But, it's hard to find a history of DDT use in Marco because say a major real estate development company decided to blast Marco in the late 50's to early 60's with DDT to get rid of the pesky bugs they can were hindering home sales. Oops, even tho DDT's lethality with fish was well known by then, we got houses to sell and money to make so too bad for them fish,they can't make the down payment on a deluxe ranch house estate nohow anyway.

  So the fish died off in major numbers in the upper 10k but the only ones complaining were a few cracker **** guides, left wing tree huggers, and precious few state wildlife people.

  It was a mass extinction but nobody with any influence o r pull cared back then. Too much money on the line.

  you'll not find much written about this in the Marco boosterism guides. Not good for business. Too much money on the line.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  0 · Share on TwitterShare on Facebook
• polliwog Posts: 355 Deckhand

  April 2019 #16

  General Development and Deltona Corp were the land developers who owned most of the land back then.  Both Co's went out of bus in the  early 70's.  Scammed plenty of  folks in the midwest with sale of building lots that had no roads or utilities.  I was in the investment business when this was going on and It wouldn't surprise me that DDT was used widely.

  0 · Share on TwitterShare on Facebook
• Bobber Posts: 943 Officer

  April 2019 #17

  General Development had nothing to do with the initial Marco project, that was all Deltona Corp. But the two companies were linked by the Mackle brothers who had sold their shares in GDC to found Deltona. Deltona is still in business, GDC went bankrupt in 92 after multiple convictions of its officers for fraud.
  Yes, Deltona carpet bombed Marco with DDT  beginning in the mid 60's,can't sell paradise when it's filled with glades angels.
  But it wasn't illegal then, even tho even the lethality of DDT  to fish was a proven fact since 1945. 
  You can research this at themacklecompany.com to get their description of the war on Marcos bugs. Note that their version of the land and air based sprayings makes no mention of the now verboten name DDT using only the less ominous word "insecticide". But in the 60's, insecticide was DDT.
  Facts: DDT kills fish very quickly when applied in heavy concentrations (5lbs per acre was recommended for marsy,swampy areas).
  The snook population in the upper 10k disappeared in the late 60's/early 70's for the next 20 years. Snook populations down south in the park did not disappear during this time.
  
  Draw your own conclusions.
  
  
  

  0 · Share on TwitterShare on Facebook
• tjensen Posts: 358 Deckhand

  April 2019 #18

  Thank you Bobber that is the part I was curious about.
  

  0 · Share on TwitterShare on Facebook
• lemaymiami Posts: 4,853 Captain

  April 2019 #19

  One additional minor point about DDT (which was highly effective on mosquitoes....) is that as it kills off the bugs it also kills off their larva (that live in the water in brackish swamps and are prime forage for almost every juvenile game fish in the 'glades....).  Just after the fish eggs hatch out, during the first days of life, tiny juvenile fish feed heavily on mosquito larva...  Kill off the larval skeeter stage and you do a number on all the fish that rely on them...
  
  An additional thought is that while it's terrible for the environment (birds as diverse as pelicans and eagles suffered badly because of DDT - they couldn't sit on their eggs without breaking them... and as a result were nearly wiped out...) DDT was and still maybe the most effective stuff ever found for controlling malaria mosquitoes around the world...

  Tight Lines
  Bob LeMay
  (954) 435-5666

  0 · Share on TwitterShare on Facebook
• Bobber Posts: 943 Officer

  April 2019 #20

  Thing about DDT is that it was the most cost effective but nature fought back and the original formula  had sharp declines in its efficacy. One sub species would be wiped out in an area only to be replaced by mutated strain that was far more resistant to DDT.
  (Sound familiar penicillin?)
  DDT  is still manufactured and used in the USA,btw, but only under extreme circumstances.It's also still made in China,India, and North Korea.

  0 · Share on TwitterShare on Facebook
• JWT Posts: 788 Officer

  April 2019 #21

  Bobber said:

  General Development had nothing to do with the initial Marco project, that was all Deltona Corp. But the two companies were linked by the Mackle brothers who had sold their shares in GDC to found Deltona. Deltona is still in business, GDC went bankrupt in 92 after multiple convictions of its officers for fraud.
  Yes, Deltona carpet bombed Marco with DDT  beginning in the mid 60's,can't sell paradise when it's filled with glades angels.
  But it wasn't illegal then, even tho even the lethality of DDT  to fish was a proven fact since 1945. 
  You can research this at themacklecompany.com to get their description of the war on Marcos bugs. Note that their version of the land and air based sprayings makes no mention of the now verboten name DDT using only the less ominous word "insecticide". But in the 60's, insecticide was DDT.
  Facts: DDT kills fish very quickly when applied in heavy concentrations (5lbs per acre was recommended for marsy,swampy areas).
  The snook population in the upper 10k disappeared in the late 60's/early 70's for the next 20 years. Snook populations down south in the park did not disappear during this time.
  
  Draw your own conclusions.
  
  
  

  the snook did take a hit in the 70's in the park. for quite a while it wasn't worth the time to fish for them on the inside. don't know if was at all related, but i have never really heard an explanation as to why. it started to improve going into the 80's....

  0 · Share on TwitterShare on Facebook