Durable Line For Saltwater?

[duckman1911]

Always fished freshwater until recently and always been a fan of mono. It does stretch compared to other lines but when fishing for big cats in the river I feel that little bit of stretch gives me that extra second do adjust the drag when a good fish makes a hard run. The problem is that saltwater seems to basically dry rot my mono fast. One trip and its done. Should I try another brand or go to braid or fluorocarbon? When a reel can hold 200 yrds of 30lb mono you can stack up some $$ fast when you fill it with braided line especially when you do 4 reels. Just looking for some opinions and recommendations from more experienced saltwater fishermen/fisherwomen.

[evis102]

I use 12lb Big Game for trout and respool every 3 weeks or so when I'm fishing alot. When I target just reds I use 50lb Power Pro and may not respool all year as I use leaders.

[meaux fishing]

I use mostly braid. You can always tie a mono backing under it if you are concerned about filling the reel. Suffix braid in 20 or 30lb. I haven't had to change out line in a couple years

[MathGeek]

Braid lasts a long long time. I like 30 lb power pro for most inshore stuff, but moving to 50 lb for rods we target bull reds on.

[Bucoo]

I use 12 lb suffix for mono. I got me a 3000yd spool for $25. For braid I like to use 30 lb power pro and I just use half backing of mono and fill the other half with braid. Can get 2 reels spoon on one spool of braid.

[dmtfish]

Originally Posted by evis102

I use 12lb Big Game for trout and respool every 3 weeks or so when I'm fishing alot. When I target just reds I use 50lb Power Pro and may not respool all year as I use leaders.

^^^ This for mono... For braid I never go heavier than 30lb... I have slowly replaced all the braid on my reels though, as I am not a huge fan of braid.

[Gottogo49]

I usually have about 50yds on new mono on top of some older mono backing. That way I can just change out the topcoat more often (once a month or so). I've recently switched one of my casting reels to suffix braid on a guide friend's recommendation. Have a 6' mono leader attached to the braid with a uni to uni knot. Will see how that works. I normally spool spinning reels with braid and casting reels with 12# mono.

[Montauk17]

Stren sonic braid 20 or 30lb...good stuff

[biggun]

Well. I use 12# Abriz-X floro by Seaguar. It's one of the best floro's I've ever used. Not a lot of memory.

I also use 14# Suffix Siege.. Great Line.. Spool all my reels with 20# mono backing and then topshot with about 55-60 yds of the above mentioned line..

Change top shot as needed.. I also changed my curados with boga bearing..

[fishhawk]

I put 100yds of 50lb braid,then fill it up with 20lb mono and top it off 60-80lb (15'.) mono, but this is for bottom fishing (bull reds n sharks)

[SuperDave]

Power Pro.

[Clampy]

Originally Posted by SuperDave

Power Pro.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free

[duckman1911]

Gona give the power pro a try as soon as I can talk myself into gettin the 1500 yard spool.lol. Really hate the idea of backspooling with mono and having too much or not enough room left on the spool. Will use the older braid for backspooling after the initial investment. Thanks for all the info

[jchief]

Most everyone uses mono as a backing for braid. I use 12 big game and 30 lb braid. Tie a good uni knot and a fish can get into the backing no problem, just may have to adjust the drag. I buy the 150 yard spools and put about 75 yards per reel.

Unless you are fishing where you get into the backing all the time, wasting your money going with 100% braid

[MathGeek]

Our Shimano Symmetre 3000 reels hold 150 yards of 30 lb power pro, and bull redfish routinely get more than 75 yards out, and we've been close to getting spooled several times. Of course, the near spooling are usually my children who are not as experienced keeping the drag as tight as they could until it a lot of line gets out and I have 'em tighten it up. But I personally play the drag on the tighter side, and I often have more than half the line out when playing a bull red.

I'd never risk losing fish with mono backing when playing bull redfish. I buy power pro by the 1500 ft spool so I can fill all the reels with as much line as they hold. 30 lb pp is fine for bull reds, but we've recently switched to 50 lb on most of the spinning reels so the children are more confident tightening the drag down to turn fish headed toward structure.

Earlier this year, we had a fish pick up a crab claw on a line counter levelwind spooled with 300 yards of power pro and quickly peel off 750 feet against a stiff drag setting before reaching the rocks and breaking off. We'd been catching bull redfish in that spot, but we suspect his may have been a bull black drum because it peeled off all that line without ever slowing down or any hint of turning, but it may have been a huge redfish. I've muscled in 40"+ redfish on this setup in two minutes without missing a beat, so it must have been a real monster to peel off all that line that quickly, and I was thumbing the reel for the last few hundred feet.

The bull red in the picture was caught on 30 lb pp in belle pass. The fish peeled off about 100+ yards of line and made several long runs after spooking at the boat.

[Gasper Master]

what you have to understand is that with Braid, you can tighten your drag down and horse that fish in.

[jchief]

Originally Posted by Gasper Master

what you have to understand is that with Braid, you can tighten your drag down and horse that fish in.

Yes and no. LOL

Just be sure your rod is made to take the stress of locking down braid.

[MathGeek]

Originally Posted by Gasper Master

what you have to understand is that with Braid, you can tighten your drag down and horse that fish in.

Originally Posted by jchief

Yes and no. LOL

Just be sure your rod is made to take the stress of locking down braid.

We use Ugly Stiks and they've held up well. Never broke one on a fish or a snag. We've had several points of failure when using braid and horsing in fish that have lead us only to do this when the fish approaches structure or we're willing to risk losing the fish due to other factors making the landing time sensitive. Some failures we've seen:

1. Weak spots in the line can occasionally develop and go unnoticed.
2. We've had snap swivels fail. Big ones.
3. We've had 80 lb fluorocarbon leaders fail. Now we retie all knots before every trip.
4. We've pulled hooks from fish's mouths. Sometimes they just aren't hooked up that well and the hook-mouth connection is the weak link.
5. Since the reel/line are on the bottom, the line can break from abrasion if the fish pulls the rod down and it contacts the side of the boat.

I've also noticed that women and children just can't horse in a fish like most grown men can. They are also more susceptible to letting the rod/line make contact with the side of the boat.

We try and let an angler hooked into a big fish take their time and play the fish. Other than structure, the most common need to horse them in is multiple hook ups. If fish get tangled with each other, most or all of them are likely to get lost, so we try and get some of them to the boat quickly, even at greater risk of breaking off. 30 lb power pro is really not the best for this, and we've broken off a lot of fish horsing them in on multiple hook ups. 50 lb pp is really much much better for horsing in bull redfish, especially in passes and channels where the fish has a strong current helping them out.

[fishhawk]

x2

[eman]

w/ braid you can always spool from one reel to another giving you good line on the working end again.