The current work focuses on the initial basic stage of filtering droplets. We study the factors that have an effect upon the amount of liquid trapped on a dry smooth horizontal wire. These factors include the impact velocity, impact eccentricity, initial drop size, wire thickness, and liquid thermodynamic properties. Based on elementary analysis of some simple experiments, we propose a non-dimensional criterion for the critical eccentricity for which the maximum amount of liquid is trapped by the wire. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.