Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Braided fishing line question?

Here we have these things called quahoggers. Some of them are great people, I'm sure, but a lot of them are real A holes. The bay looks like a floating junkyard. They ignore the rules, blow through the no wakes, and they get way too close. I had diggers run over my lines twice in the same day. I'm trolling slab spoons on 80 pound Power Pro at $40 a spool and a digger flies by 10 yards from my stern picking up both lines. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Now I've got to put the boat in neutral and pick 2 rods up, lower the tips, loosen the drag, and hold them so they don't snap while I fumble for the knife to cut the line. Spooled on both. I fill them back up with another 300 yards each and 20 minutes later, it happens again #$%#@. Some days, it just doesn't pay to get out of bed.

Power Pro braid has several adhesive strips in the package that are meant to be stuck on the empty spool before filling, if you lose the ones furnished a small piece of adhesive tape works well also.

We keep a water balloon launcher on the boat just for that scenario.

I use braid almost exclusively. A wrap of electric tape on the spool before filling will stop the slick braid from slipping on the spool. I have not found a know that will work. A "top shot" of braid on top of mono is often used, but not practical on small reels.

I have been told by a number of serious fishermen here that braid will wreck spools if you don't put a little mono under it. The line manufacturers used to advertize that in their instructions. My buddies that go after giant tuna all use braid over mono. I do as well. The only time I saw it slip was tied directly to the spool. I've got a 21 foot sailfish and bring a lot of people out on Narragansett Bay and off shore. I have at least 20 rods and only 1 has braid on it. It's just too darn expensive. The bluefish tear it up too. I'll tell you that I've broken off 3 or 4 fish in a day on braid and I've gone whole seasons without snapping 30 pound extra tough P line. I popped 80 pound P line on 10 pound fish 3 times one day and I called them. I was told that hard striking fish can pop braid. I had to double the length of the shock tippet I was using to make it stop. I use 20 feet of mono, and I know people that use 50 ft. If it's for tuna, it's probably fluorocarbon. The price of that and the braid is $$$ I just use mono. If you're fishing clear deep water I realize the value. The tuna guys can fit twice as much on a spool and that's useful. I don't really need it. Bot enough to justify the expense.

We use a top-shot of braid over mono when we have to use big reels, with heavy drags. The reason we do, is that we seldom use more than 1000' of line, and don't want to spend $300 loading 4000' of braid on a reel.

Same here, no problemo.

i use a 200 yd top shot of mono over the braid.

With a 200 yd topshot of mono, why would you use braid? I use 6-12' top shot of mono, just enough for abrasion resistance and a wee bit of stretch at the terminal end, but not so much that I loose the sensitivity of braid nor the low drag which allows me to fish deep in a current w/o going crazy heavy on jigs or sinkers.

As to backing, most of my conventional reels have either dacron or mono. I did spool up two avet sx's with braid all the way. I haven't fished them yet, so don't know if slippage will be a problem. I did load them under quite a bit of tenstion, so that should keep them from slipping. Hopefully I'll get a chance to see how they perform tomorrow.

i shark fish from the beach and need the extra line. i can fill a 80 up with 1500 yds of 150# braid then top it off with 130# mono. I fill my 50'S 3/4 100# braid then top it off 100# mono.

I was watching a group of old folks fish for crappies with cane poles with 6-8 feet of line simply tied to the last eye. An old gent hooked into what turned out to be about a 10-lb pike. The cane pole was over matched so the gent pitches the cane pole into the water. They chased the cane pole around with the pontoon boat for a half-hour or so until the pike was tuckered out.

I'm a baitcaster guy.
I use a Shimano Curado or Chronarch filled with 50lb Power Pro braid with Maxima Ultra Green leaders in 10, 12 & 15# for all of my river fishing for salmon & steelhead.
No problems on fish to 40 lbs.
Great stuff, ultra sensitive

Used to be a fairly popular method of fishing for northerns. Long cane pole with line about equal to the length of the pole. Dardevle. Fairly fast troll. Strike. Pitch pole into water and let it tire out the fish.

I don't know about the last 5% of the spool, but I do remember seeing "Micki" the owner of Fat Smitty's at Discovery Bay, catching a 40+ Pound King Salmon at Fort Worden using 8# test line on a light spinning rod. When she finaly got the fish to turn around the last time there was just five turns left on the spinning reel. It used to be fun catching salmon off the beach this time of the year using light tackle and eight to ten pound test line.