Reading some Traver, I found a passage describing the use of a Rubber Band between the fly line and leader to absorb shock of a strike…
Anyone ever try this?
Hi brhoff,
Rubber bands sound just plain unreliable to me. I believe that Power Gum may be a more reliable substitute though I don’t use either. I try to keep a soft hand and arm on the rod at all times. 8T 
You don’t want to try that with barbless hooks or you’ll probably loose most of your fish to “long distance releases”. In fact, with barbless hooks, you don’t even want to hold your rod to high or the springiness will allow fish to escape.
Ed, who has extensively researched ways to loose fish
Wasn’t looking to actually try it , just curious…artical written somewhere in the 40’s I presume.
I can ony imagine the debate regarding pound test of various rubber bands…Staples vs. Office Depot.
we use something similar while trolling for steelhead which have a tendancy to break everything on the strike—ive brought up broken swivels, hookless lures, broken 20# flourocarbon leaders and just a braided line
the snubbers that we use are silicone rubber tubing with a wire thats a bit longer inside —it will stretch til it hits the wire so some of the impact is reduced. Having a steelhead hit a trolled lure rigged for walleye is like throwing 25 bucks away every time you get a hit
My step-dad used 1/4" latex tubing with a long wire pushed through it tied swivel to leader to troll for salmon in Oregon. It worked good as a shock absorber when he’d get a strike. Later I was looking for a material similar to use while trolling for large fish in lakes. My dentist gave me a couple of lengths of stretchy material that might have been floss. I’m not real sure what it’s purpose was but it was dang near unbreakable, stretched real good and did the job of helping to hook fishes. That was over 20 years ago. I’m not sure but I believe I still have some in an old tackle box. Ask your dentist about it. Jim
You tie two loops in your leader, the length betweeen them the length of the ‘stretched but not quite to the breaking point’ of the rubber band.
Loop the rubber band through these loops in the line.
It pulls some slack in the line and lets the rubber take the ‘shock’ of a hard strike, but the line is still there to take the strain when the band is stretched tight.
A little more subtle than the rubber snubbers and won’t efect the casting stroke as much with a fly rod.
I’ve seen it used lately by guys fishing for Kokanee…I guess they hit hard.
Buddy
I use fiberglass rods. No need for a shock tip when it’s at the end of your rod.
http://www.rioproducts.com/product.php?recKey=62
It is called shock gum.
Gary
I heard of some English fisherman who use this a lot (and, as noted above, it’s also called “shock gum”.)
Shock gum works well when your fishing with small dry flies and fine tippet. Other than that, I’m not sure I would bother with it.
There was an article a few years ago by Charles Jardine in one of the UK publications. I read it back then and have tried the shock gum since then. It did improve the hook up rate in the situation I mentioned above.
Hi,
In one of the books I have the writer indicated that they used 15lbs nylon that they boiled for 1 minute as a memory free shock absorber (just added to the start of your leader). I recall one of the fellows in the club boiled some up and it looked like it would work really well. Don’t know how it would impact on the turnover performance though - negatively I would think.
- Jeff
I use to use that trick back in the 70’s and early 80’s when I was still into dragging hardwhare. Back then we would pull a flatfish behind those long gang-trolls. The weight of the troll would always rip the hook out of a fishes mouth when it jumped. By adding a rubber band at the end of the troll, before the leader and flatfish, we were able to cut out the jolt and hold onto more fish. So, yes it works; but I don’t see why it would be needed when fly fishing.
There used to be a product called “bungee butt” that was probably the same thing as the shock gum. Just use it for the butt section of your leader. Kind of a pain, though maybe I’ll try some again now that you guys say it helps your hookup ratio.
I just use this stuff. Already stretches just the right amount.
http://www.froghairfishing.com/fly-fishing.cfm?prodid=790
Good aftrnoon
Many thanks Jeff H and BRHoff,
for your ideas/suggestions.
In my case, I wanted to use a 2 1/2lb tippet and ‘blew away’ each and ever fish ever time because of my excitment on this months trip away.
And now you just might have found a controller for my wild, ‘got you now’ striking.
Thanks again, Jeff, BRH and of course FOL for making this exchange of ideas and information possible.
Kind regards,
UB
PS, No, I don’t live in Flordia… but my sister in law does 