Rio Toothy Critter 3.0 Twist Clip & Swivel Leader

The Rio Toothy Critter 3.0 Twist Clip and Swivel Leader is a complete, ready-to-fish bite leader for anglers chasing fish that will cut a standard tippet in half. It arrives as one assembled unit: a tapered nylon leader, a micro swivel, a knottable wire bite section and a Rio Twist Clip at the fly end. You loop it to your fly line and you are fishing. No wire knots, no crimps, no haywire twist on a rocking boat with a musky following your fly.

This is the leader for pike, musky, barracuda, bluefish, mackerel and anything else that ends a day early by biting through 20 pound fluorocarbon. It is equally at home on a northern pike flat and off the back of a skiff, and the Twist Clip means changing between a big streamer and a popper takes seconds rather than costing you six inches of wire each time.

Taper Profile

The front end of the leader is a tapered nylon class section, which does the casting work. Rio attaches the 20 pound wire bite tippet to a 20 pound class tapered leader, and attaches the heavier 30 pound and 45 pound wire options to a 30 pound class tapered leader, so the class section is always matched to the bite section it is carrying. The butt and taper are built heavy enough to turn over the large, air-resistant flies these species require, then transition through the micro swivel into the wire. Total length is 7.5 feet.

Why We Like It

The failure point in most homemade toothy rigs is the connection, not the wire. Tying nylon to wire well takes practice, and a hurried haywire twist on the water is how anglers lose the fish of the season. Rio solves it with two pieces of hardware instead of knots: a micro swivel joins nylon to wire and kills the line twist that big streamers generate on the retrieve, and the Twist Clip attaches the fly without you cutting and rebuilding the wire on every change. The knottable wire is genuinely knottable if you do want to modify it, and it keeps the abrasion resistance that makes wire worth using in the first place. For most anglers this is simply a better rig than what they would build themselves, at a price that makes carrying spares easy.

Specs

• Total Length: 7.5ft
• Construction: Tapered nylon leader, micro swivel, knottable wire bite tippet, Rio Twist Clip
• Class Strengths: 20lb and 30lb
• Wire Bite Strengths: 20lb, 30lb and 45lb
• Pairings: 20lb wire on 20lb class, 30lb and 45lb wire on 30lb class
• Connection: Loop to loop at the fly line, no knots required
• Best for: Pike, musky, barracuda and other toothy species