Fly Fishing in Salt Waters had an interesting trick for attaching heavy leader butt sections to fly lines in their July/August 2005 issue.

In the article "When Dreams Come Blue", Capt. Gene Quigley describes his "Chinese Finger Trap Rig" connection, which he uses for bluefin tuna: 

• Run 18" of 100 lb dacron over the tip of the fly line, and push it up the fly line.
• Overlap 12" of the heavy mono butt section with the tip of the fly line
• Use 15 lb mono to nail knot the end of the 80 lb mono to the fly line. Use a similar nail knot to attach the tip of the fly line to the 80 lb mono.
• Coat the nail knots with Pliobond
• Work the dacron back over the overlapped fly line / butt section, and whip down outside of the nail knots.
• Coat the whip finishes with Aquaseal

This connection tightens down as tension is applied, similar to a "Chinese Finger Trap" toy.

Looking for a billfish teaser rod ? There was a thread recently on Dan Blanton's bulletin board that suggested using the specialized Sabiki bait-catching rods for a teaser rod.

These rods are 7 - 8 feet long, pretty stiff, and have no external guides (the line runs thru the center of the blank). This leaves a smooth surface on the rod, so that if you accidentally toss a loop of line over the rod blank while working the teaser, there are no guides to catch the line.

Superbraids (like PowerPro or Bionic Braid) are becoming increasingly popular offshore. But superbraids are also notorious for poor knot strength. For example, in order to achieve 100 percent knot strength in a superbraid, a Bimini Twist must use 70 - 100 twists, versus the 20 - 30 required for nylon monofilament.

Since a good double line is the starting point for most offshore rigs, a simple way to make a 100 percent double line in a superbraid is worthy of note. Max Garth's coaxial splice falls into this category. To make the splice in 50 lb superbraid:

• Take a short ( 4 - 8 inches) section of 20 lb braided monofilament, and thread the superbraid up thru the center. To do this, you can use a folded-over section of #3 or #5 wire or a bait rigging needle as a threading tool.
• Once you have the superbraid threaded through the braided mono, simply use the same threading tool to splice the braided mono / superbraid back into the braided mono. Only a couple of inches of embedded tag end are required.
• Pull tight, and trim the braided mono back to within an inch of the embedded tag end of the spliced line. Put a drop of Loctite 406 on the end of the braided mono to lock it to the superbraid.