Trace work is half of fishing the North Coast: toothy fish, strip baits and rigs you make yourself. Straight from the crew's how-to videos: the twist every wire trace starts with, the snoek strip bait trace, the FG knot that joins braid to leader, and the garrick traces for winter.
The haywire twist
Nearly every wire trace starts with this knot, and it's where most guys go wrong. All of the strength comes from the first phase: the two pieces of wire wrap around each other at 90 degrees, not one wire wrapped around the other. One wire around the other just pulls loose.
Make a small loop in the wire and leave yourself 6 or 7 cm of tag end to work with. A loop-forming tool makes this easy, but the wire's own packaging shows the hand method.
Feed your hook (or swivel) onto the loop.
Lock the two wires at 90 degrees to each other and do 4 or 5 wraps, keeping that angle the whole way. This is the strength of the knot.
Finish with 3 or 4 tight wraps of the short end around the long wire, snug up against each other. These just tidy the knot off; they add no strength.
Never cut the tag end. Kink it off: get the short end behind the knot, bend it up 90 degrees about 2 or 3 cm from the knot, then use that upright piece as a lever and twist. It pops off clean, leaving a finish far smoother than any cutter can manage.
The snoek strip bait trace
What you need: AFW wire (number 6 or 7, thick enough that the trace doesn't kink), number 5 swivels, an SSH number 5 bait holder hook, a strip bait skirt (the pink-and-pearl one is the crew favourite), pliers that won't rust, a haywire twist tool and wire cutters.
Haywire twist the wire to the hook, but don't kink the tag end off. Leave about a centimetre of tag standing directly upward off the hook: that's the anchor point for the tip of your fillet.
Keep the wire short. About 5 cm to the swivel is plenty for snoek: with the length of the hook you might get bitten off now and then, but most of the time it's perfect.
Haywire twist the other end to the swivel and kink that one off normally.
The skirt (duster) doesn't live on the trace. Feed it onto your leader first, then tie the swivel on with a uni knot and let the duster slide down. If the fish want a different colour that day, you just cut off, swap dusters and carry on.
Make a good few traces at home and keep a bag of dusters with them. On the water it's tie on and go.
Rigging the strip bait
Bait of choice: a fresh redeye sardine, easiest to work while still slightly frozen. Cut one fillet off the whole fish: start at the tail, cut down to the bone, then run the knife along to the head.
Thin is the goal. A thick, wide fillet won't swim, so trim it toward a V shape.
Skin out. It gives the cotton something to grip.
Measure the fillet against the trace, hook through the middle of the strip, then pin the wire tag end through the tip of the fillet.
Cotton only the tip, around the tag end. A few loose turns first with the bait hanging down, then a couple of tight ones and knot off. It doesn't need much.
Slide the duster down over it and it's ready to swim.
The strip bait isn't an all-year bait, but when the fish are on the bigger baits it is highly, highly effective.
The FG knot
The FG is the crew's knot for joining braid to a nylon leader, anywhere from 10 lb braid up to 80 or 100 lb. It's very strong, and it's slim enough to run through the guides without catching. You'll need your braid fed through the rod guides, your leader (Maxima is the go-to for most of the spinning setups), a lighter and a pair of scissors.
Put tension on the braid: leave it on the rod, grip the end between your teeth and lean back slightly. The wraps only seat properly on a tight line.
Wrap the leader and braid around each other: over and around one way, then under and around the other, alternating. Thirty wraps in total, fifteen each side. Keep light tension so every wrap sits tight; once you find the rhythm it goes quickly.
Lock the plaits with a single granny knot tied in the braid alone. Now you can let go without it sliding apart, but the knot is only half done.
Finish with the Rizzuto finish, leaving yourself a decent braid tag end. Hold the leader's tag end against the braid main line, wrap the braid tag five times around both, then unwrap the loop back the other way five times and pull the tag so it cinches closed.
Trim the leader tag to about half a centimetre, wet the knot, and burn the stub back to just before the knot. Blow it out and smooth it with wet fingers.
Trim and burn the braid tag the same way, but first move your main line and leader well out of the way: heat weakens braid, and you only want the flame on the tag.
It takes a bit of time, but you don't tie it often, and once it's in, that knot is not going anywhere.
The garrick traces
When winter comes and the garrick arrive, the crew fishes two traces: back-to-back hooks, and a single circle hook. Both have caught plenty of fish. What you need: Mustad Big Gun hooks in a size 1 for the back-to-back, an inline circle (the BKK or the SSH, a favourite circle hook) for the other, a size 4 power swivel (small but very strong), about an arm's length (1.5 m) of 0.54 Siglon fluorocarbon, a toothpick, some latex ghost cotton and an optional glow bead.
Back-to-back hooks
Push a toothpick through the eyes of both hooks to hold them aligned back to back, then bind both shanks with latex cotton until they're solid. It's a tedious wrap, but the latex hides neatly (heat shrink or super glue also work).
Finish with a couple of overhand knots, pull tight, snap off the cotton and slide the toothpick out.
Tie the fluorocarbon to both eyes with a figure-of-eight knot: loop the tag end, pass through three times, lubricate and pull it down tight. Snip the tag.
Add the glow bead if you like them, then tie the power swivel on the other end with the same figure-of-eight.
Rigging a live bait: one hook goes through the nose, the eyes or the back, and the second hook sits proud on the fish.
The circle hook
Same trace, different hook connection: a loop knot, so the circle can move freely.
Make a loop and pass the tag through twice so it forms a figure of eight.
Feed the circle hook onto the tag end, then follow the tag back through the figure of eight: in where it went in, out where it comes out. Slide the eight down towards the hook.
Make one more figure of eight over the main line, as close to the hook shank as you can, lubricate, slide it down to the first one and pull. You're left with a super strong loop the circle hook runs freely on.
Glow bead if you want it, then the power swivel on top with a final figure-of-eight.
Fishing them
Run two baits: one on the surface with no weight, and one weighted. For the weighted bait Justin uses a 3 or 4 oz teardrop sinker on an elastic band, attached to the main line 4 or 5 m above the bait. Plenty of guys instead run a 2 or 3 oz ball sinker straight on the main line above the swivel as a running weight. Either way, garrick are sensitive to weight, so fish a super light drag and free-spool so the fish never feels the sinker pulling on the bait.
