Haywire Twist & how to make a changeable Single Strand wire leader

When you're chasing species like Wahoo single strand wire traces are a must.
(pic by Tim Simpson)

It's a lot of years ago now that I watched a young Tim Simpson do a haywire twist in single strand wire for a customer chasing Spanish mackerel. I remember seeing the perfectly even twists that formed as he worked the wire between just his thumb and a few fingers. For some unknown reason I just had to learn how it was done. And so Tim gave me a demo, gave me a 1/4lb spool of 69lb single strand and sent me on my way to practise.

21 years later and I'm still yet to get mine anywhere near as neat (without a little plier manipulation) as my mind remembers that first perfect twist. But I have become pretty good at it and these days I'm the guy that's doing the twists instore for anglers heading north to chase mackerel and wahoo.

In those earlier days we used to connect the wire directly to the lure. It stayed on that lure until it was ruined and then needed to be re-tied. These days we have come up with a rig that allows for the same neat, slim connection but with the ability to change lures without cutting the trace off too. It also allows that if a trace gets ruined by a fish it's quick and easy to replace it with a pre-made trace ready to go.

This has only become a reality with the advent of high strength, low profile split rings like those sold by Decoy as well as the super strong yet small stainless solid rings from the likes of Owner. The set up is really straight forward.

We have a single strand wire trace that is between 25 - 60cm long (I prefer them short while others favour them longer) that has a small solid, blackened brass ring at the top end to attach a mono leader to and at the lure end there is a small solid stainless ring through a small high grade split ring. This allows the lure to be quickly changed with a pair of small split ring pliers.

Showing the two ends of the leader. Tie your mono leader to the blackened brass ring (bottom) and attrach your lure to the stainless split ring (top).

This still means you need to learn how to do a haywire twist to make the rig but allows you to make plenty up in the comfort of home and not in the heat of a hot bite on a pitching deck.

The removable single strand wire trace attached here to a Halco Laser Pro.

So to help with this we've created the following small clip that will hopefully see you master the haywire twist. It'll take a bit of practice but once you have it mastered you'll catch plenty more of the razor gang next time they're around.

Some things to know about single strand wire.

1- single strand wire is much thinner for it's breaking strain than multi strand wire and so will be less visible.

2- thinner diameter also means that single strand has less negative affect on the action of your lure resulting in a lure holding true at higher speeds than when a multi strand wire leader is used.

3- it's believed that multi strand wire vibrates in the water and can spook shy and wary predators.

4- because of the hardness of single strand it tends to slide in between the teeth of a fish rather than getting bitten through.

5- the strength of the wire is seriously lowered if the wire is kinked. You'll notice in the clip I use this to my advantage by kinking the tag end of wire to make it possible to snap it off clean with the barrel roll.

6- once you have this technique mastered you can create your own leaders without the need for tools. That said if you struggle with this technique the team at Dubro have a great tool for making perfect haywire twists.

For more information contact the team at Compleat Angler Melbourne

P: (03) 9620 3320

E: melbourne@compleatangler.com.au

W: www.compleatanglermelbourne.com.au

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