I am looking at building my own tip up leaders for northern pike. I looked at the AFW seven strand 30lb wire at fleet farm. I about crap my pants when I looked at the price tag. It was like 4.50 for 30 feet of AFW seven strand 30lb. The 30lb seven strand seemed awful thin to me! Any suggestions?
Might want to do the math on that purchase. It's only $.15 a foot, there is no better value in leader material. You really want to roll your eyes? Look at the price of fluorocarbon leader material.....
Or anything titanium for that matter.
Remember, you're not spooling up with the stuff, just making a leader. Say you want an 18" leader. You'll have $.23 in the wire, another $.10 for a hook and $.06 for a swivel.
That's a total of 39 cents for your leader If you want beads or blades they are added to that cost of course. That $4.50 will make you 20 18" leaders. If you want longer it's a little less, shorter, a little more.
As far as thin? That's the idea. Sure, maybe not as durable as a thicker coated wire or higher pound test but your lively bait will thank you for not weighing it down. I use 20# most of the time unless I'm swinging really big baits (think 9 - 12" chubs).
Bet you'll pay more than $.15 a foot for music wire (though used would be my favrorite price) and it will be comparatively stiff not to mention a little more challenging to work with (but not undue). I use tempered stainless wire (like music wire) to make single strand musky leaders and in line spinners all the time. In fact if you go back and look where you found the stranded stuff there should be some single strand (or solid) leader wire there as well.
