Fishing Line

[marty f]

Thinkin about trying out some braided, never have used it cept for when I went fishing with Hoop. I have fumbled through this and that to resolve to most of my pole now are set up with Big Game 15lb mono, and a 30lb floro leader. This has been working fine for most every thing I normally catch, the wifes and kids poles I used a 20lb line.

What brings me to this conundrum was I got some fishing money for Christmas and momma said go buy you a new pole to catch those bulls again. Well with that said, last time I was catching bulls was with Capt. Hoop, and he was using braided, hell for everything, bulls and slots.

so now on the edge of a new rig I wanted to get a better understanding of the use of braided,

What say ye?

[Jman121799]

I use 30lb power pro slick 8 on my spinning reels, with a 20-30lb leader when fishing plastics, and 12lb suffix on my baitcasters, i love power pro

[Crawl79]

2/3 of my rods are spooled with power pro slick.

Use it for reds and flounder exclusively.

For trout I normally have a couple rods with mono and at least one with braid and a 3'-4' leader of flouro tied with a uni to uni.

[C-Bass2mouth]

My avatar pic is a 10+ that was wrapped in a tree top for over a minute steadily sawing on the line. My buddy grabbed her by the mouth out of the tree, and pulled her and the whole top up. 20 lb Power Pro with a 1/0 hook. Think I might have even chopped the line a good bit with the trolling motor while I crashed on high into the tree lol. Once you get comfy with it and start boat swingin toads you'll break all kinds of rods lol

[TroutSupport.com]

I like the suffix performance braid. But yeah, all of them are tougher most of the time. At least if you are using 30# plus. The lighter braids don't do as well against abrasion such as oysters, barnacles, and granite rocks like any jetties or abutment.

Both Fluorocarbon leader and mono leader have their place. Typically i'll go with the tougher 100% Fluoro leader such as Pline, Seaguar, Ande, and even Bass Pro when i'm working shallow oyster or the rocks. I'll use a mono leader in the marsh and in the open bay with no worries. Some like to use a mono filament leader with topwater lures since it is slightly more buoyant than Fluro. but that's picking hairs.

[RichWentFishing504]

Popping cork rod gets 30lb power pro slick and 20 lb mono leaders. Dead lift school trout all day.

I have 1 rod dedicated for sliding corks. I use 40 lb regular power pro because those little sliding cork knots and beads don't work too well with 30lb braid. Sliding cork knots slip on the super slick.

I don't fish on the bottom much for trout but when I do I just use the above rod.

What you have to keep in mind with braided lines is that they have almost zero stretch. Any give to fight a fish is done exclusively by the rod and the reel's drag.

One time I took a friend of mine out fishing with me. He used one of my sliding cork rods with power pro. We pulled up to a near rig and I began hauling in 3 and 4 lb trout. I got 7 to his 1 in just minutes. We were both getting good hits. Live shrimp under a sliding cork set to 5 feet, throwing right up against the pilings in 8 feet of water. Identical setups. However, he had this massive hook set that was ripping the trout's lips. They would be on for about three seconds before the number 4 trebel would tear free. I would just reel up the slack and snap my wrist and being the trout in. It wasn't until I gave him another rod with mono did his landing ratio improved.

Lesson here is mono gives a lot more than you think. On bigger trout this can be an issue. No big deal on a redfish or bass. They got tougher lips.

You can prove this yourself at home. Remove the hooks from a topwater lure and tie it to a rod with mono. Have a friend walk 25 yards away with the rod. Hold the lure between your finger and thumb and have him set the hook hard. Unless it's a giant surf rod your friend will not be able to rip it out of your grasp. Re-spoil with a braided line and he will be able to rip it out of your grasp every time.