Home Forums Fishing Freshwater Old line

So after not fishing for nearly 25 years, I went to the farm and found my old equipment. I've stripped the line off my reels and plan to clean them up and grease the pinion. In my ancient tackle box is a full spool of Stren 10 lb test line. Is it any good, or should I toss it?

Toss it. Line is cheap compared to the frustration of losing a good fish because of rotten line.

Good point. Chuckle....I tossed the jar of salmon eggs too.....still had liquid in it. Lots of hooks, bobbers, split shot that I can salvage though.

Line has come a long way in the last 25 years. Personally I haven't bought run of the mill monofilament stuff since I started using Fireline and fluocarbon. We had our rods and level wind reels with 20 pound test monofilament mounted vertically in rod holders on the charter boat and after the sun got at it for a while, we could break that stuff like store string. Your 25 year old mono stuff would come off that spool like a coiled spring.

Not all I use, but I still use some mono I bought from Herters . . .

Prior to my move in 74.

Mono that has seen a bunch of sun is likely another matter.

Line is cheap, get new.

Sounds like a concensus. I'll look into the newer lines. Need to do a little reading and see what has changed. Thanks for the input.

New line is a cheap investment to insure success. Damn little line gets wore out most just deteriorates with old age. Most of us do not fish near enough. Mb

25 years ago, my fishing buddies started getting married and having kids. They weren't as available. I just slowly quit going. But I think it is something I want to get back into. Same happened with bird hunting for a while, but I bought a new 20 gauge and started going alone. Funny thing was then folks wanted to go too, so I got company again.

Fireline for spinning equipment.

I still use mono on my baitcasters, should probably give braid a try on them at some point.

If switching from mono you will have a short learning curve. When I switched from mono to Fireline on spinning reels I was thinking wtf is this schitt, once it got wound up tight on the spool I was good to go. By the end of the first day I was really liking it.

Super strong and sensitive. Casts a mile too. I use 8# and 14#. Stuff is about as thin as 2# and 4# mono.

Throw it out. Switched to braid when it first came out, likes to wrap itself sometimes on spinning gear. Have spooled a couple with flourocarbon, works great also.

By consensus of the crowd, old line is in the garbage. Looking at what's out there......trip to Scheels in the near future.

I like PLine copolymer 6 and 8 pound on my crappie, trout, and walleye spinning rods. I’ve tried braid and Fireline and never could get it to work well without it turning itself into a Gorian knot that required a knife. I probably respool twice a season on my heavy use rods due to abrasion and just running out of line from break offs. My catfish rods don’t get respooled but once a year, I’ve recently switched to 40lb mono on them and it lasts longer.