Haywire Twist

How many times have you been fishing and had Spanish mackerel, bluefish, barracuda or other razor toothed species come out of nowhere and slice through your leader? When this continues to occur, you might as well throw on a short piece of steel at the end of the leader and catch them. When you do this, use a knot like an Albright to connect the class tippet to the wire, and use a haywire twist to connect your fly. While there are several companies that make knotable wire leader material, many still prefer to use ­single-strand wire. The haywire twist isn’t as difficult to tie as you might think. Where many people get it wrong is the first couple of twists. These twists need to be very tight; if you can accomplish that, you’ve essentially succeeded. To be safe, make about four solid twists and immediately follow these twists with four to five barrel wraps.