I know that copper is real popular among the salmon fishermen on the other great lakes. Sinks deeper than leadcore for the same amount of line. It's claimed that it is more pliabe than the single strand stainless or monel wire that still gets used a lot here in central basin Erie (stainless wire caught 75% of our fish this weekend). Plus there is more dive curve data out there for copper than stainless wire. We were talking about maybe getting a couple of copper setups, might be part of my christmas shopping. I know bloodrun tackle makes a 20lb copper that they market for walleye fishing and based upon their data hits pretty much the same depth as their 30lb. I've spotted the bloodrun and another brand on jannsnetcraft.com. I believe there is variation in brands with depths because of different densities/alloys (?). The link goes to their dive chart for 20lb, as you can see big variation between line speeds. If you go around their site they also have some numbers for the copper running various reef runners.
http://www.bloodruntackle.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Untitled.png
Bloodrun also has some reel capacity data for the 20lb, but most is for huge amounts of backing and 100' of copper. I have an email out to them to get the line diameter for the 20lb so we can use a reel calculator to figure out how big a reel would be needed. I've found some numbers out there but don't think they are right, but even so, doesn't look like we'll be able to get 300' on a Okuma/Cabelas 15 size or the Penn 109. We'll see about a 20 size reel. Once I get work back from them I'll post what I've learned into this thread.
I imagine copper fishes a lot like stainless, and somewhat like braid. With the stainless there is no give in the line. So you feel everything, and there is no forgiveness. Gotta keep your rod up and tension when reeling in. I had a rookie moment this weekend on the wire line, took half a step forward which eased tension and the fish was gone. Basically though with wire, just be patient and don't horse it in. Get a few steelhead on wire line and you'll work through the learning curve
. Aside from the long length to reel in, I find wire line pretty fun. You feel the fish and the fight, it's not like reeling in a log.
Also wire setups are good candidates for planer board programs, either mast or inline. So if you want outside lines that still get down it's definately an option.
