NJ re Fishing Line

[Blaugrana]

Curious on everyone’s thoughts regarding the various fishing lines. I took a hiatus from fishing for a good 15-20yrs and got back into it again late last year. Back then spider wire was the thing...

I am still sticking with mono and a fluoro shock leader (3-5x rod length) but was curious if I should make the switch to braid. I typically bottom fish (bay/ inshore) and surf fish.

What’s everyone’s thoughts on braid and the benefits of it? I’ve read a lot but nothing has really sold me on it but I know lots of locals use it.

 

[seasick]

There are advantages to braid. It is lighter and thinner for a given test strength. It doesn't stretch very much and for fishing some species, it lets you feel bites and nibbles much better than mono. You can use less sinker weight for a given depth and currents. That's just two advantages. On the negative side, it can 'bird nest' a lot easier than mono. It doesn't stretch and that can be an issue for certain species. It is more expensive generally.
For older rods and guides, it can cause abrasion of the guides.

I tend to use mono on my spinners and on my wife's rods. She likes to cast and as I mentioned, bird nesting can be nasty with braid. Sometimes you just can't untangle the mess.

Braid is hard to break off when for example you get tackle hung up and just want to snap the line. It can cut your skin.

For me, it's braid on all baitcasters and conventionals. I fill half or so of the spool with mono and finish with braid. I use fluorocarbon leader generally.

My advice is to give it a try and decide when it has an advantage. If you blackfish, you will be pleasantly please with the feel.
Happy fishing!

 

[SkunkBoat]

We use braid (Berkely Power Pro) on all bottom fishing/ jigging rods. Its a thousand times better than mono. You can feel everything and set a hook in 200 ft. I will never use mono bottom fishing/fluking ever again.
Its on all spinning rods. Casts farther, thinner, stronger, better feel.. Yes -wind blown knots can be a problem, especially with light lures.
Very tough to use it in the dark.
36" mono wind-on leader using an Albright knot...learn to use this knot!
Otherwise, use a Palomar to a swivel and then attach leader.

I have a Penn 50, TLD25, and Penn 30 rigged with PowerPro "Depth Hunter" that is color-coded for depth. greatest thing since sliced bread! You can get your jig exactly where you want it. (Don't buy knock-off chinese multicolr braid, its NOT the same).
These rods have a spider hitch loop in the braid to Momoi wind-on mono leaders.

Mono is on some trolling outfits. Better in outriggers. I use different colors yellow, green, blue & clear. Helps see trolling lines and fight fish under/over lines. They double for drifting baits too (TLD25 shark fishing or TLD15 live lining bunker for stripers).

I don't like flouro. Doesn't tie well. I use mono leaders and catch fish. Replace them often. No reason to buy flouro. Fish don't care.

 

[Meanwhile]

I echo what Skunkboat said, bottom fishing, nothing but braid. I use it on electrics, manual and spinners for steelhead. I keep a wooden dowel (fish bat, anything that grips) or a rubber knot snubber close by when stuck on the bottom. 80lb braid will anchor the boat on a halibut drift.

I recently turned over 6 year old braid on my Avet 4/0. Like new on the bottom.

If you like longer mono/flouro topshots then practice on your knots, RP, whatever. If you cast a jig and a knot gets caught on an eye, duck or say goodbye to the jig. I started using shorter topshots, just shy of rod length so the knot is outside the first eye. I only use flouro if fishing critters that need extra cut off protection. I also like the Mason hard leader for that as well.

 

[Blaugrana]

We use braid (Berkely Power Pro) on all bottom fishing/ jigging rods. Its a thousand times better than mono. You can feel everything and set a hook in 200 ft. I will never use mono bottom fishing/fluking ever again.
Its on all spinning rods. Casts farther, thinner, stronger, better feel.. Yes -wind blown knots can be a problem, especially with light lures.
Very tough to use it in the dark.
36" mono wind-on leader using an Albright knot...learn to use this knot!
Otherwise, use a Palomar to a swivel and then attach leader.

I have a Penn 50, TLD25, and Penn 30 rigged with PowerPro "Depth Hunter" that is color-coded for depth. greatest thing since sliced bread! You can get your jig exactly where you want it. (Don't buy knock-off chinese multicolr braid, its NOT the same).
These rods have a spider hitch loop in the braid to Momoi wind-on mono leaders.

Mono is on some trolling outfits. Better in outriggers. I use different colors yellow, green, blue & clear. Helps see trolling lines and fight fish under/over lines. They double for drifting baits too (TLD25 shark fishing or TLD15 live lining bunker for stripers).

I don't like flouro. Doesn't tie well. I use mono leaders and catch fish. Replace them often. No reason to buy flouro. Fish don't care.

Thanks!

I've been using the double unit knot to tie my fluoro with mono, but it definitely catches on the guides when casting. Fluoro isn't too bad on my lighter rods (12lb Mono w/ 25-30lb Fluoro), but I noticed when I start getting into the 50lb Fluoro area, it's awful to tie knots with.

I started researching the FG knot and I'll relearn the Albright. It was one of my original knots that I used to tie, but it has been ages. I went to the double uni in lieu of the Albright last year.

When you connect the braid to mono, what lb mono do you use? Just match the same lb test or go up?

 

[Blaugrana]

There are advantages to braid. It is lighter and thinner for a given test strength. It doesn't stretch very much and for fishing some species, it lets you feel bites and nibbles much better than mono. You can use less sinker weight for a given depth and currents. That's just two advantages. On the negative side, it can 'bird nest' a lot easier than mono. It doesn't stretch and that can be an issue for certain species. It is more expensive generally.
For older rods and guides, it can cause abrasion of the guides.

I tend to use mono on my spinners and on my wife's rods. She likes to cast and as I mentioned, bird nesting can be nasty with braid. Sometimes you just can't untangle the mess.

Braid is hard to break off when for example you get tackle hung up and just want to snap the line. It can cut your skin.

For me, it's brain on all baitcasters and conventionals. I fill half or so of the spool with mono and finish with braid. I use fluorocarbon leader generally.

My advice is to give it a try and decide when it has an advantage. If you blackfish, you will be pleasantly please with the feel.
Happy fishing!

Agreed - I'm going to try it on a new spinning reel I just bought and see how I like it next year. I hope the bird nesting isn't anymore common than with Fluoro. One of the fluoro leaders I bought was so smooth that it would just fly off the reel and eventually bird nest right before it hit that first guide. Forced my daughter and I to pay attention and close the bail the moment the lure would hit the water. Otherwise, it would be a mess.

 

[Blaugrana]

I echo what Skunkboat said, bottom fishing, nothing but braid. I use it on electrics, manual and spinners for steelhead. I keep a wooden dowel (fish bat, anything that grips) or a rubber knot snubber close by when stuck on the bottom. 80lb braid will anchor the boat on a halibut drift.

I recently turned over 6 year old braid on my Avet 4/0. Like new on the bottom.

If you like longer mono/flouro topshots then practice on your knots, RP, whatever. If you cast a jig and a knot gets caught on an eye, duck or say goodbye to the jig. I started using shorter topshots, just shy of rod length so the knot is outside the first eye. I only use flouro if fishing critters that need extra cut off protection. I also like the Mason hard leader for that as well.

So you do the same as skunk boat? Mostly braid with 36" or whatever length to your first guide?

I saw some articles on how they do about 3/4 of their capacity with braid and then the rest with mono as its more cost effective to simply replace the mono rather than the braid. However, doesn't that defeat the purpose of braid as you lose the sensitivity???

 

[seasick]

The trick is to spool up with enough braid plus reserve for the depths you typically fish. There is no sense spooling 400 yards of braid when you fist at 40 feet. In that case spool up mono first and then follow with braid. With regards to leader strength, I usually use the same or one level lower test strength than the braid. The reason is that if you get hung up, braid is really hard to break off. I use 30 pound a lot and if I need it to break, I have to tie it to a cleat and gun the motor. If you use a lighter leader, it is easier to break off at the tackle end. As I mentioned, braid can slice you hands.
If you take young kids or newbies fishing, I recommend mono. Otherwise you will be spending most of your time untangling lines and reels

 

[SkunkBoat]

I'm with seasick. Mono backing.
The only reason to topshot mono over braid is if you fish on party boats for tuna. They don't want to deal with braid when anglers tangle.

For my 30# bottom/jig outfits I use the 150yd spool. Good luck figuring out how much mono to put on first....

If you have two of the same reels you put it on backwards on one then add mono to fill, then transfer to the other reel (Someday I'll remember to measure and take a picture of the mono on the reel)

Tuna/deep drop reels are all depth hunter powerpro. I buy a BIG spool.

 

[Blaugrana]

Thanks for the feedback....

Was about to buy 500 yards for two Penn Battle that I use in the Bay until your feedback. Going with mono as a backer now, then braid with mono leader...

If I do 20lb braid, should I do the same lb test for the mono backer? Or go with what I usually put, which is 12lb

 

[Meanwhile]

I use total braid because if my give way on my lead doesn't work I can lose 600-900' of line while fishing for halibut. If you do that make sure you wax the spool for corrosion and use a bit of tape so the braid doesn't spin on the spool.

I can only think of trolling or live bait fishing to have a long stretch of mono. I use a loop to loop for larger fishing, 130 hollow braid to 100 mono. I'm was trying to entice the larger bluefin we had show up off the Oregon coast. Several were spotted, a couple were hooked with albacore gear to a sad ending.

I also use a device with carbon fiber drags to load my braid. Get it very tight so it will not dig in.

These are the line pullers I keep on the boat. I also use them to set knots in braid. But I still wrap fingers with stretchy tape for line cuts.

 

[Blaugrana]

Thanks...just bought some braid to try on my bay poles...

What’s the deal with the knot pullers? When I tighten the knots with mono and Fluoro, I just wrap it around my hand and slowly pull and tug. Can you not do the same with braid?

 

[seasick]

It is hard to get a tight hold on it and it can slice your fingers. Also note that is is harder to cut than mono and cutting works best with a clipper or scissor. There are cutters made specifically for braid

 

[Blaugrana]

Alright, guess I’ll be swapping my hands and teeth for one of those pullers

 

[Blaugrana]

Circling back to this thread for some more advice. Going to put the mono and braid on a new Penn Battle and Penn Squall 400 LP...

Trying to figure out the leader. If I mainly use rigs that have about 24-36in of line, should I bother putting on a leader? I was thinking of having a leader that I can quickly connect if using lures, but otherwise put a tactical angler clip at the end of the braid and then connect the rig or the leader when needed for the lures.

 

[SkunkBoat]

If you are going to use premade rigs( with loops) then you probably just need a good coastlock swivel. Then if you need a leader for a lure just use a loop to the swivel.
To connect braid directly to a swivel/hook/ring always use a Palomar knot
Easy peeezy...
Multpile hook bottom rigs tend to spin so a swivel helps.
Only problem with swivels is accidentally winding them into the top eye...

I usually use wind-on leaders for jigging rods and no swivel. Mono leader to braid using a doubled Albright or an FG knot.

 

[Blaugrana]

Thanks....

So when I make the rigs, I typically put a swivel at the end instead of a loop. I’ve done this since a kid....Is that not a good practice and I should I switch to loops at the end of the rigs?

I need to look into a wind-on leader more as I am not too familiar with it.

The two problems I had experienced last year is either someone reeling in too much and having the swivel go through the first eye or the double uni knot being too big on the shock leader so it would catch on the guide, reducing the casting distance.

Is the Albright or FG much smaller than the double uni or is it due to the line diameter being smaller on braid causing the knots to be smaller? I was trying to get away from joining the lines but maybe my issue was the diameter of the fluoro leader 40lb.

 

[SkunkBoat]

So...
tying a swivel to braid is easy with a Palomar...unless there is a rig already attached to the swivel.
When tying a Palomar, the swivel or hook has to pass thru a loop. Not something you can do with a 24" rig with 2 hooks and a sinker.

So its better to have a snap swivel on the braid and have Surgeon's or Perfection loops on the rig or leader.

Surgeon's loops require no thought or skill....easy peezy...

For leader to braid I use a modified Albright. I double the braid first. Then tie an Albright with at least 11 wraps. I use this on short(rod length or less) leaders on jigging or casting rods.

Went Sea Bass fishing last fall...A buddy told me he learned a great new knot...FG knot.."so easy" he said...he tied on a leader on my rod and I put on a diamong jig and a dropper loop with a baited hook...first drop... bite..set hook.. lost the whole thing...

For tuna trolling I buy premade Momoi 25 ft wind-ons and use a loop to loop. Loop in the braid is made with a Spider hitch (because biminis are a PIA). End it with big, quality ball bearing offshore snap swivel.
THEY NEVER FAIL. some have been on rods for 4 seasons catching tuna/mahi/sharks/tilefish.. when one eventually fails it will be my fault for not remaking the spider hitch

 

[Blaugrana]

Thanks for all of the advice. I’ll go with a different approach than I usually do when I tie the rigs and go with a wind-on leader.

 

[Blaugrana]

Redid two rods this weekend and the Albright is a much tighter knot than using a double uni to join two lines. The Albright knot joining the mono to fluoro on one rod was about half the size and looks like it has nothing to catch on when passing through the guides. Now, I’m going to redo the knots on all my reels as the Albright is much better.

As for the braided reel, I did all of the math to figure out how much mono before the braid based on line diameter and line retrieve. It was way off after doing the “30” rotations/ retrieves so I just estimated 150 yards braid. The modified Albright with the braid/ mono was much harder than the fluoro/ mono combo.

Is there a preference between which line to loop and which to wrap around when doing the Albright? I ended up creating the loop with the thicker line and wrapping with the thinner but not sure what you are supposed to do.