Home Forums Fishing Freshwater braided lines and ultra light equipment

Thanks for that tip, my friend. Makes sense. 6# braid is the diameter of 2# mono, but is a lot limper.

Another vote for the uni-knot. Best if you get a little spit on it when you pull it tight. I tend to use it for everything where it makes sense.

Power Pro is the brand I used. Repeated drift's through rock/rocky ledges will wear on it. Even used with a bobber and jig sea run rainbows hooked will burn line down or up a river across these ledges. Didn't work for me and where I winter fish. Could easily be the ticket somewhere else.

Been running 15 braid on a Pflueger 8225 MGX, always a Palomar, no leader. Been pretty satisfied overall, almost as happy with it as the 6# P-line CX Flouro, the CX is Flawless in no knots, etc. - low memory, seems as strong as 8-10, and no stretch for good hook sets.

I do wonder if I have my spool a tad too full of braid and that is causing issues with the occasional wind knot. I hate the hassle of undoing them, as I never have it with CX.

I have some 10 braid I may try - but any thinner, afraid it will dig into the spool, etc. and cause problems.

Braid has it's place but ...

There are situations where mono is vastly superior.

This tiny little stadic 1000FJ with a 5.5' st croix rod. Tiny little gear, it took fully 10 minutes to get this smallmouth out of the water. My drag is set to 3 lbs at 10 feet with a full spool.

Caught it on a tiny orange rapala. Using yellow power pro 15lb line. This was an amazing battle with this really miniature gear how fun! My son took video with his phone. This bass came completely out of the water 3 times.

Had I used my more typical gear the fight would not have been anything like this. Ultralight gear is like the meth of fishing gear for me. Addictive to say the least!

It's a ton of fun, but playin' 'em that long can kill fish, if you plan to release them.

COOL! Many thanks for that!

Jim, nowadays I use a 5.5 foot rod and a Shimano 750 ( a bit smaller than your 1000) loaded with #10 Fireline for everything.

Prior�I had been using Shimano 500 ( smaller yet..) on a 4 ft. 9 inch rod�heres a couple catches made with it�

#20 pike�




#4 Smallmouth�



5.5


Ingwewife with #16 pike on the 5.5/750 combo..




I actually find it takes not much longer to land them on UL tackle than on conventional tackle.

Maybe I can horse them in a bit more then I do. I still have mono phobia, assuming that my 4lb test mono is going to break every second I'm hooked up. Now with the little fine diameter braids I can still use 4 pound size, but 15lb strength.

The weak link is now the St Croix Premier and Triumph rods. I feel a lot better using my 5.5' uglystick Ultra light rod, that is not gonna break very easily no matter how stupid I get.

Those are amazing pike on a UL rod and reel.

I see some of y'all discussing 4# and 6# braided line. I don't run line that light but if I did I wouldn't bother with braided...it just doesn't seem necessary at that point. YMMV

Jim, you can indeed put the pressure to them on the braided line. Ive been using Shimano rods and am happy with them. Yes, Ive broken a few, but very few, and I always keep a spare�.


Headed up to AB in August for another Mega-pike trip!

I would love to go with you, but I'll be stuck in Africa hunting with clients until Labor Day.

"stuck" in Africa�


Sucks to be you!!


But honest, you've been around so you know Im not yanking your chain, we have a nice place we go where you can expect to boat over 100 pike per day. They go everywhere from 5 pounds up, but of course as you go up, the numbers are fewer. Still 100 five pounders on UL tackle in a day will keep you on your toes! Its a good time!

These are the little guys�



The medium guys�




You've seen the large ones�.


A little better view of the tackle, this is the Shimano 550/4'9" combo..

I really like Smally fishing with UL tackle. However I tend to favor 7 foot rods, hell I have one 9 foot UL rod that is an absolute ball to hook up a 12 pound channel cat on

I fish for smallmouths a ton. Everything from fly rods to heavy baitcasting. No matter the rod and reel combo, if I were using 15 pound braid, I'd crank the drag more than 3 pounds at 10 feet.

FYI

I caught this one on an 6 ft. UL spinner with 6 pound mono. Grip em and rip em.

With a peak hold scale connect to the line and the drag adjusted to 3 pounds with this little st croix rod it's near the breaking point.

Not sure how many guys realize what 10 pounds of drag is like? I e caught a 100 bull and lemon sharks on 15 pound mono with spinning gear using 10lbs if drag. Measured at 50 yards. Of course it get lighter the smaller the spool or as more line goes out.

I had a tarpon snap my billy Barroo rod at the boat with 15 lbs of drag. that same rod landed dozens of big sharks. Drag setting is an interesting topic. Most, maybe near all guys grab the line ahead of the reel and puil out a stretch to see what it feels like.

I scale set all mine. Hey that's just me.

Forgive me if I'm mis-thinking this, but from what I know of leverage, the effective drag ought to INCREASE as the spool empties. That's because the moment arm gets shorter as the line level gets closer to the spool. The fish is pulling on a shorter lever, thus requiring more effort to pull line out.

It hardly ever matters in freshwater except with fly reels (due to the thickness of the line) and only then with fish that make long runs. But a big fish making a long run is exactly the time you want your drag set right to start with - and that means setting it a bit light with a full spool.

Jim, I never measure mine, but I assure you its wayyyyyy less than the breaking strength of the line. Using this braided line on a lift UL rod, the rod will break a long time before the line does�.