To use or not to use a trace?

a funny thing about fish teeth :-)

LINK: Although they only have small, raspy teeth, we find a 20kg coated mono leader is required to avoid bustoffs.

Once your bait gets under the water, you then have no choice at all as to what type of fish is going to bite your bait, so use a trace and don't take any chance you will loose a good fish.

Maîneÿ . . .

x2 on Get Outmore's views. No wire needed unless big tailor are involved and even then with the point of the top hook through the eye of the pilly there's a fair bit of shank exposed. Have caught salmon on bait, lures and flies for 30+ years and never been cut off (by a salmon). Busted off, yes, but that's another story.

Cheers
Mark

Agree also, very unlikely to get bitten off but a good chance of getting busted off.
I would be using a mono or flurocarbon leader before I even considered a metal trace

mainy - I garantee ive hauled in more salmon then you from my days on the west coast of the EP to my stamping grounds est of esperance and these days the south and southwest

- a salmon rarely swallows a ganged hook let alone gets the chance to bite it off however Ive used snelled hooks a fair bit and they have an even better catch ratio as they dont get thrown as much while jumping

ive had no worries catching them on small hooks with lighter line

sometimes they might bust you off but not rasp you off

as for losing a good fish - youll probablly scare off more of them using wire

the only things that will bite you off down south are the odd lost tailor or a shark - neither of which fall into the "good' catogory

now the mid west north is a different story and a recent trip to lucky bay had me bitten off a few times

As the majority have said don't use wire - by all means a mono trace but not wire, or you'll scare off more than you'll catch.

Yes, but when fishing from a boat (as I do) or even the shore, you can't pick and choose which fish species will bite whatever lure/bait you have tempted them with, I assume Lee is using a boat and not fishing off the shore because there are much better places to go fishing when shore based than here.

The chances of catching a pinkie or much larger fish are more likely at this time of year as the salmon are not around here now, they were back in April - June.

So getting rigs suitable specifically for salmon will leave you without any fish at all and is a complete waste of time and effort.
Image Could Not Be FoundMaîneÿ . . .