Wire leaders became a necessary evil when we discovered kingfish and wahoo have teeth. The question is, how much leader do you really need?

After rigging miles of leaders and spending years untangling them, I've decided you don't need much.

Shorter wire leaders are easier to rig, store and deal with when landing fish. They're safer, too. A busy crew hopping over and around each other with a couple of 6-foot leaders lying on the deck is a hook in the leg waiting to happen.

Wind-on leaders are standard in big-game fishing, and the same approach makes sense in small boats, where the angler is often the captain and the mate all at the same time. Basically, a wind-on leader is long monofilament leader that you can wind through the rod guides and onto the reel. The leader offers abrasion resistance against powerful offshore fish, and once a couple turns of heavy mono are on the spool, it's a means of controlling the fish at boatside for gaffing or releasing. A snap swivel connects the leader to a short wire or heavier mono terminal leader ending with your bait.

Start with a high-quality monofilament leader of approximately three times the weight of the line on your reel. If you troll 30-pound test, simply double uni-knot it to 14 feet of 80-pound mono. On 20-pound line, try a 60-pound leader. It's probably best to make this connection by first doubling your main line with either a Bimini twist or Spider Hitch, but you can get away with a single strand as long as your leader size doesn't exceed the main line by more than about two-and-a-half times.

At the business end of the mono, vary the length of the wire depending on your battle plan for the day. Instead of using the traditional 6- to 8-foot piece, if wahoo or kings are the target, try using only about 10 inches of wire. Simply connect your mono to wire with a 75-pound black ball bearing snap swivel.

I have never had a problem with a snap swivel that close to the bait, but lately I've started experimenting with a tiny feather on the mono above the snap. That sets up a scene where the ballyhoo appears to be chasing prey, a sight that sends nearby gamefish into a feeding frenzy. To make one of these baby dusters, you can trim the tentacles of a plastic octopus skirt, or the fibers of a small SeaWitch-style skirt.

You can either leave your bait naked, or slide a larger skirt on the short piece of wire, with the tiny skirt on the mono covering the snap swivel. To really make life simple, try drilling out the holes on skirts or plastic lures that you normally slide over the head of your mullet or ballyhoo. The big advantage to that is you can slide the lure off the wire, over the snap swivel and onto the mono leader as the fish is boated. That way, it's back in the water on the head of a new bait in a matter of seconds.

If you're more apt to find dolphin or sailfish, but want to hang onto the toothier species should they strike, the preferred rig is even easier. Just leave whatever feather or skirt you're using that day right on the heavy mono. Then tie the mono to a small black swivel, perhaps a No. 7, and attach just enough wire to join the pin-rigged ballyhoo to the swivel, leaving only a few inches of wire. The skirt will then slide down, covering the swivel and the head of the ballyhoo.

The fish will never see the wire, and the mate will only have mono to handle at boatside. The hot skirt will stay on the line when the fish goes in the box, and there will never be leaders lying around to tangle with, because 14 feet of your 15-foot leaders never leave the rod.

It'll soon become standard operations on your boat to throw any fish you're going to keep into the fishbox, and cut the leader at the swivel. When you return to the dock, just remove the hooks at the cleaning table. No more threat of being bitten, or dodging hooks from a thrashing dolphin. It's also nice to be able to reuse the 2-inch piece of wire over and over, as the shorter leaders are less likely to get kinked. That's something to think about when a big dolphin or sailfish breaks the water in a wild leap, bending and twisting the 6-foot piece of wire you once thought you couldn't do without--perhaps one of the most compelling arguments for using a short wire leader.

I may be flirting with losing the wahoo of a lifetime using only a couple inches of wire above my baits, but I'm getting more strikes since I shortened my leaders. So far, not a single wahoo or kingfish has been able to reach the mono to bite its way to freedom.

On a recent charter flight to the Bahamas, with baggage space at a premium, I had to laugh at some of the tackle boxes bulging with rigs I saw. As for my crew, we had a half-dozen of our favorite skirts, with 50 ballyhoo, and strip bait rigs, stored in a single Tupperware sandwich box. Instead of taking up room and waiting to tangle in the bait cooler, our long leaders were already on our reels, ready to go.

I've always liked rigging my baits the night before, and it sure is a lot easier to get set up in the morning without having 30 or so 6-foot leaders rolled into a giant ball when we reach the deep water in the morning.