Amelia Island Fishing Tips

I see very few people fishing, either in the surf or on the pier, who use shock leaders. I'd never used one, never even knew what they were, until one day 30+ years ago I found out from another fisherman. After watching me pop the line when casting (as hard as I could because the trout were way out in the river) about four times, another guy fishing on the same pier was nice enough to approach me and give me my first lesson in shock leaders. That one lesson has saved me countless lost sinkers and bottom rigs, and I'm sure it's help me land a lot of fish that would have broken off my line.

A shock leader is simply a heavier piece of line that is tied onto the end of the main line. It's origin, I imagine was related to surf fishing - if you put a heavy sinker and a good chunk of bait on a light line, and then cast it as hard as you can (which most surf fisherman do), sooner or later you'll be greeted by a large POP and then you get to stand on the beach and watch your disconnected sinker and rig fly off into the ocean, in the general direction of Italy. The shock leader absorbs the shock of casting, and prevents that from happening.

The picture above is of a 40 lb test shock leader (the green line) tied to a 17 lb test main line, which is the size of main line I usually use in the surf or from the pier. It's tied with an Albright knot, which is a knot used to join two lines of different sizes. The Albright knot is the main shock knot I use, because it's very strong and I can usually tie a good one on the first try. I used a Blood knot for years, which I think may be a tad stronger, but it's very difficult to tie (you need 4 hands and a bowl of soapy warm water to tie a good one). I'm not going to attempt to tell you how to tie knots on this web site, but here's a link to a good example of how to tie an Albright knot.

Another fisherman said "A wet knot is a happy knot" and he didn't mean in the ocean, he meant when it was being tied, so either give your knot a kiss before you tighten it up or stick it in a cup of soapy water. Inspect the knot carefully when it's done, give it some nice hard yanks with the leader in one hand and the main line in the other. If it doesn't look right, then cut it off and start over. Sooner or later, you'll have a shock knot let go on you and you'll lose a rig or worse yet, a fish. But when you get good at the knot you pick, those times will be few and far between, and you'll send a lot less sinkers flying towards Italy.

I use a bright colored line for shock leaders - yellow or bright green - because it not only keeps the sinker from breaking off but you can also see the shock leader coming in with the fish, which helps to keep from losing fish in the break.

Shock Leaders for Surf Fishing - There is a common formula for the length and test of shock leaders for the surf. The leader should be long enough to make five turns around the reel, and it should be 10 lb test for every ounce of lead you intend to throw. So a five ounce sinker should require a 50 lb test shock leader. That formula applies to distance casters, and to the younger guys that really load the rod when heaving, but since I'm a semi senior citizen and I don't cast a surf rig near as hard as I used to years ago, I've found that a 40 lb test shock leader works fine with up to 6 or 8 ounces of sinker for me. You don't want too many turns around the reel, because the heavy shock leader line negatively affects the distance of your cast.

Shock Leaders for Pier Fishing - I also use a shock leader when pier fishing, but for a different reason than when I'm fishing in the surf. I make my shock leader much longer on pier rods - long enough to go around the reel 10 or 12 wraps and then down to the water plus a few feet. When pier fishing, a shock leader provides two benefits. It allows you to see the bright colored leader and know where the fish is but more importantly it gives you a much heavier line from the reel to the water than your main line which is very helpful when trying to horse a large fish into a pier net. The biggest red I've caught from the pier this year so far was 40 inches, about 35 pounds, and I caught him with a 10 lb test main line. The 40 lb test shock leader was very helpful in getting him into the net, over the rail, and into the digital camera.

The extra long shock leader on a pier rig will cut down on your casting distance, but distance casting isn't an issue from most piers.

Article By Amelia-Island-Fishing.Com Staff