The most important part of fishing can be the last 3 or 4 feet of your line. How you chose and rig your leader, and what material you choose, can be the difference between catching and not catching fish. The sad part is that many people opt to be cheap when it comes to this selection. People will spend $100,000 on a big offshore boat, $300 on gas to drive it 40 miles offshore, thousands of dollars on rods, reels and line — and then balk at the idea of spending $20 on a spool of fluorocarbon leader material.

A leader is used for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, it’s used to protect the final few feet of your line from cuts and abrasions. Everything in saltwater is abrasive: Pilings, mangrove roots, rocks, oyster beds, reefs, even boat bottoms — in short, all the places we like to target for fish. Fish are abrasive too, from snook lips to shark skin. Some fish — sharks, barracuda, kingfish, Spanish mackerel — sport a mouth full of line cutters. Secondly, with the growing popularity of braided line, which has no stretch and is extremely visible underwater, a leader is used to provide some stretch and some degree of invisibility to the end of your line.