Fishing Tips: Line

[Ca_Bass]

Here's some more information that should be useful:

I recently picked up some Ardent Reel Butter, and I HIGHLY recommend it to ALL fisherman. This stuff is awesome for increasing the life of your fishing lines, it loosens up old mono and flouro, and restores the color to older braids(not sure how it would do on fly line). It also makes casting with a baitcaster easier. Before I discovered Line Butter, when I would make long casts, especially before my line starts to absorb some water, my thumb would get "burnt". This stuff eliminates that. Since I've been using it, the amount of backlashes I get has gone down tremendously. (I'm not sponsored by ardent...but I wish I was..I would take boxes of this stuff).

OK now for the meat and potatoes!

Line seems to be something that is overlooked by many anglers. It's always, what did you catch them on, what color where you using, where did your catch your fish. The line you choose has a great effect on your lures action and casting easy. Especially when you're fishing crankbaits and topwater lures or any sort of plug lure.

Line for Crankbaits:
-There are generally two rules of thought here:

Mono:
Allows for more stretch and will assist in keeping the trebles from pulling out of a fishes mouth.
Flouro:
Sinks, less stretch and is thinner so you get more depth and sensitivity.

If you have a traditional cranking rod (fiberglass) that has a lot of flex I would go with a flourocarbon line. Because your rods flex is already going to help keep from pulling hooks you can get away with a stiffer line. Additionally, a traditional cranking rod is not as sensitive and a flourocarbon line can help compensate for this.

If you use a graphite rod for crankbait fishing mono is probably a better choice. Because graphite is stiffer and more sensitive the mono will give some stretch and keeps hooks from pulling out as often.

Say you have a crankbait that is rated to dive between 8-12ft. It might dive to 12ft with 8lb line but only to 10.5 with 10lb line and 8ft with 12lb line. The general rule of thumb is that for ever 2lb test you drop you gain about 1.5ft in depth on your crankbait. If I was rich I would have 3 Identical crankbait rods and reels but have them spooled with 8, 10, and 12lbs lines with identical crankbaits on each rod. Then I could really dial things in.

I have a gloomis deepflex cranking rod..it is a graphite rod but it has the flex of a fiberglass rod, but it is SO MUCH lighter and sensitive than fiberglass. I haven't found my line of choice yet for this rod, I've tried 10 and 12lb mono so far and I'm not getting the depth I should be getting on my deeper diving crankbaits. Next I'm going with 6lb mono. But I have a feeling that I will end up using 8lb flouro on this rod, to get more depth and sensitivity.

Some of the top level pros do everything they can to delay their reaction to a crankbait bite so the bass can fully engulf their lure. Like not watching their rod tip, or putting their rod on their knee or put the tip in the water.

Topwater:
One of my only set in stone rules is my choice of line for topwater lures. I believe you have to use 12lb to 20lb mono.
Flourocarbon and braided lines sink and will cause the nose of a topwater bait to dive down in the water and it will not "walk, pop, skip or chug" very well. The same goes for mono less than 12lbs it will also cause you topwater bait to dive. Anything more than 20lbs becomes more difficult to cast, and when fishing topwaters, long casts are a must. As with crankbaits, you need the let the fish take your topwater before you set, and the stretch of mono also aids in this. Although, one of my favorite things in life is seeing a bass smashing a topwater, it causes as automatic reaction for me to set. So I try not to watch my lure a whole lot and just listen for it. If you are getting a lot of topwater bites it's becomes easier to delay for a second.

Small jerkbaits:
Fishing small jerkbaits is a very effective technique for fishing at Wilson, when I first started fishing Lake Wilson I had trouble catching the schooling fish because I could not reach them with the small lures. First I tried using 4lb mono, this let me reach the fish but I would break off a lot too. And the 4lb mono has a bad way of twisting and knotting up. Because I was breaking fish off I decided to go with a 10lb braid on my spinning reels, and this was the ticket. It casts far better than the mono, and it was much stronger, but I learned that I couldn't really set or I would pull the lure away. I also started busting the banks with the same set up and I loved being able to horse tucs out of the wood with a spinning rod and finesse lures. One day I was fishing I noticed 4 tucs in a row came steaming towards my lure and turned away at the last second. The previous few weeks I hadn't had any issues with the fish being scared off by the braid but the water was quite clearer than usual and it seemed as if they were all of the sudden scared away by the braid. So I put on about 4 or 5 ft of 10lb flour leader and immediately got results. To tie flouro or mono to braid a dropper loop knot works very well. You just have to make a few more wraps. I've been doing this for about 5 years and have yet to have a splice come off. The dropper loop also feeds through your guides very easily. If you don't know how to tie a dropper loop you can google it. The main problem with braid on a spinning reels is it will slip on the spool...to counter this put 25 to 50yds of mono on your spool first, then fill the rest with braid and attach your leader.

I usually replace the line on my reels every month or two. If a rod didn't get used much and has mono on it I will stretch my line before I fish, this really helps out with your casting. The coils that mono will get after time really hamper your casting distances. To save money, I rarely take all the line off my reel when I re-spool, I usually use a cheap 20lb line for backing to take up space. This makes replacing line regularly much more cost efficient.

One thing that I've found over the years is that you really have to experiment with line choices to get your desired effect. There are not many hard fast rules, just some guidelines to help you out.

[shanai]

Hey, ever thought about posting a blog,
very informative stuff. I need to pay more
attention to my line setup. Thanks for sharing
the information.

[fish4fun]

Good stuff
Thanks!
Keep it coming
I've been trying to figure out line choices.
Did come across Tufline recently at Walmart
It's only about $6.50 for 125 yds
It's a.braid made.for.spinning.
bought some 20# with a diameter of 10# mono which I will give a try next time