Which  Wire ?
asks Robin Shipp

It seems to me that these days quite a lot of articles, reviews etc are about what I would call fairly extreme ends of lure fishing such as massive mega jerkbaits or tiny gnat-sized lures and they're just fine if you're into that kind of thing.

Whether these are just passing fads or here to stay, and I don't know the answer, I would guess that many anglers like myself still mainly fish with what I'd call normal middling lures. No doubt someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but the split of lure sales by size and weight should be a good guide.

Always use a Wire Trace
Wherever you fish and whatever lures you use, you should always use a wire trace; not Kevlar, Spectra or other braids, not fluorocarbon monofils etc etc but good old-fashioned reliable wire.

Of course for jerkbaits etc you need special mega-strong traces of 80 lb or higher and often they're solid wire ones to get more action in and to stop tangles on the over-run.

At the other end of the scale with those diddy little lures, you also have to use special matching wire that doesn't totally wreck the action of small lures.

Right in the Middle !
But right in the middle of all this are my everyday normal middling lures and regular standard trace wires. I've tried all sorts of wires over the years and I expect that you have too: thick or thin, coated or uncoated, soft or wiry, kinking or non-kink, cheap or expensive, and so on.

And then there's the age-old question of whether it's better to twist or crimp and I'm not going to get into that except to say that personally and on balance with regular lures and normal wire, I prefer to loop knot, twist and superglue, but it's entirely up to you. By the way, I never heat my wire now, not since I found out how much it gets weakened by doing this!

Fish Welfare's First !
To me, fish welfare, performance and cost are the three most important things and in that order too! Personally I don't hold with expensive wires that claim to be easily un-kinked and that claim not to be weakened at all when you do this. For the life of me (and the fish!), I can't see that anything's safer than using good strong regular wire, soft or stiff, whichever you prefer, that costs less than 25p per metre i.e. less than 12p per per trace (swivels are re-usable) and to replace my traces as soon as they get badly kinked or pig-tailed.

As for which wires I have tried out and which ones I use now, I have to say that for my regular lures I still find that Drennan's 7-Strand and Soft-Strand wires are pretty much unbeatable on safety, performance and price.

OK, so I don't know very much about jerkbaits or mini-lures and so I can't say whether or not these regular wires are any good for them but they're certainly ace for my type of fishing with lures from about 0.5 oz to about 2.5 or maybe 3 oz.

With lures like these, I don't need ultra-fussy what some anglers call "finesse" type presentation and nor do I need mega-strong solid wire to get any action into my lures: they've got enough in them already.

"Bandit" Prices ?
As I've said, I've tried quite a few other wires in my time and I'm sure you have too, and that you've got your own favourites as well, but most of the ones that I've tried have been more expensive than my normal ones. They may have been a bit better but not THAT much better and certainly not enough to justify some of what I call "bandit" prices that some of them cost.

For example, the wire in each of my everyday traces costs me about 23p per metre i.e. less than 12p per 45 cm (18 inch) trace. Compared with this, some of the wires that I've tried have cost 55p per metre and one was actually nearly £1 per metre: there's a word for that, and I've already used it once!

Perfectly Good Trace Wire
No, I reckon that for less than 25p per metre, you can get perfectly good trace wire for middling lure fishing and I've heard all the arguments about wires that cost twice or three times as much, lasting two or three times longer.

I still remain to be convinced, and by some proper data, that these unkinkable wires don't lose some of their inherent strength when you unbend, untwist and unkink them. And while there are still perfectly good wires around at less than half the cost, I'm really going to take some persuading — how about you? Robin Shipp.

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