breakaway fastlink failure followup
 

from 06 reveiws thread...

Sounds like it could be a combination of things, maybe exacerbated by tying direct to braid. Did it fail where the braid was tied? Possibly the knot slid up the bar ( or whatever you'd call it where a lure would slide on ). I imagine that the leverage it would provide combined with the lack of stretch and force a big fish caused it to bend. Guess it could happen on the mono end the same way. Otherwise, unless there was a manufacturing defect, 80 or 100lb breaking strength should certainly outlast the line, hooks, etc.

I have only ever used them on the end of a mono leader and attached a lure to them. The lure has pretty much always stayed in the bend. I can't see how it would fail that way, but who knows... I find enough ways of losing big fish as it is...

the clip bent out and actually opened the "arm" side where you slide the lure on. Similiar to when you open a paper clip. bend out one side . The deformation occured a the bottom of the loop. i still have the clip as a reminder, if i can find it and figure out how to resize a pic ill post it.
I tied a polamer from braid to breakaway and then used a 100lb spro swivel attached to 65 lb flouro witha 7/0 gami circle.
A friend that was with me and I were both pretty shocked. I/we have been fishing them for 2+ seasons and never had issues. It could have been a bad one in the package, but i see no reason to test it again myself.
its like using braid around boulder fields. I have heard people telling stories about the braid snapping on a rock with nice fish, but I had landed fish in the 30-35lb class in boulder fields with braid and never had an issue, at the end of the season I lost another nice fish, the last nice fish of the season, when the braid rubbed on a rock and parted. i plan to have a spool for braid and one for mono in the future depending on where i fish.

Was it the heavy clip? I ask because the lighter one might be ok for schoolies but I wouldn't even trust it for that.

It seems it would take a lot of pressure to straighten out one of those clips. We use them in the canal with tremendous pressure on them and they never fail.

I used to do what you did so I could quickly change out my leaders when they wore out, but stopped that.

I used them all season last year and none failed. As Slip said, the pressure we put on fish is tremendous. 50 or 65# braid, maybe 30" of mono leader, heavy jigs, All Star 1209s and reels that can hold 12# of drag all night. My biggest weighed fish of the year (33#) probably didn't run off more than 6-10 feet of drag, in a 4 kt current.

This is what I was figuring and tried to describe. You basically had a leverage situation and the bend is the fulcrum. While it is disconcerting that it happened, it seems like a freak accident. I don't know of any hardware that is 100% fail-proof. Overall, I have heard almost no other problems w/ them.

it was the heavy clip. I started using them at the canal for this purpose and i thought they gave the jigs nice action. so i was actually using 2, one for the jig and one for the leader. I have heard of the smaller ones failing on larger fish. I think the rating for the large ones is 100 or 150 lbs.

zimmy
Quote:
This is what I was figuring and tried to describe. You basically had a leverage situation and the bend is the fulcrum. While it is disconcerting that it happened, it seems like a freak accident. I don't know of any hardware that is 100% fail-proof. Overall, I have heard almost no other problems w/ them.

I agree that nothing is fail-proof, andit may have been a freak occurance, but one freak occurance is enough for me. There are enough other things to go wrong, I don't want to be worried about a clip while battling nice fish.
I have landed fish in the low to upper 30's with them...but this felt like a really nice fish.
It wasn't a long battle either, I had the fish on, a long steady run trying to slow her and slack.
it was the 5-6 fish of the night, none over 18 lbs.

my partner in crime uses them - hasn't had an issue yet - I'm sticking with Rosco and checking my drag isn't too tight

You need to make sure your getting genuine Breakaway Spin or Fast Links. There has been a problem in the past with "knock offs":realmad: in the Breakaway packaging. The originals should be a heavy gague stainless, if yours were a blackish color they were most likely chineese knock offs. If you go to the Breakaway UK site tyhere is a long statement about this problem with knock offs. :realmad:

As far as not trusting them I have caught stripers to 48# and red drum approaching 60# from the surf using the smaller spin links with 0 problems.

bought em direct, breakawayusa.com
sounds like this was a one-time thing. glad to hear it. i still don't think i will use them when hunting large.

One thing with these clips is to replace them often. If you fish all night with a rosco clip or whatever the next night you toss it in the trash. Or you tie a new leader with a new rosco.


Im finding that folks who've had failures with the fast clips, are usign the same clip over and over or instead of throwing away a used clip are retying with that same clip theyve used for a few outings.. :smash: Clip only good for an outing... using the same clip on the beach that you had on last night while jigging the canal with a 6 oz jig is asking a bit much from a clip.. Retie. Throw away the old ones, new outing new clip, good fish new clip, new leader new clip..

shock leader!!!!!!!!!

Hmmm ... good point about replacing them after each trip ... as I tend to hoared them like a freakin' miser ... now I will either have to throw away what I have stored ... or just be careful moving forward ... have not had problems with them, but any link is always facing a risk of failure no matter what ...

I guess some of those clips are living up to their name - breakaway.
They have to change that name - "stay tight" clips or something.

It's like naming a hook company "Forever Dull" or "Roundpoint".

What were they thinking!

All types of clips fail at some point. Just the nature of what we do.

DZ

:wid: they will make them right!

The original product was for baitfisherman and tucks the bait behind the weight, When it lands it breaks away.

you sure about that?

Yup. Nick Meyer named the company after the bait rigs. They're streamlined so they cast far, and then whatever holds them in place for the cast "breaks away" when it hits the water.

The clips are strong. As strong as any snap I ever used and stronger than most.

On the other hand, he also has a brand of mono that's labeled "Breakaway" and the word is, that truly does live up to its name ;)

love 'em fish the 80's, had one failure but still caught the fish- it lassoed it!