Braid for rivers

[Dick Dastardly]

I have directed nothing directly at you Jeepster.I really dont know what your problem is but to be quite frank I now no longer care.

[jeepster]

fair enough, its sunday and i've walked about 20 miles at work today, with no lunch then had a bottle of wine when i returned so maybe i'm not thinking too clearly

 

friends?

[Dick Dastardly]

Of course

[Dave Lumb]

BUDGIE:

 Does yer head in dont it Dave!

[argyll]

Having just got some 10lb Power Pro from Dave I'm keeping my head down. I'll let you know how I get on with the Ebro catfish

[Peter Waller]

Not on 10lb lines surely?

[jeepster]

10lb is overkill on the ebro, i'd probably use 5 lb mainline with a 1.7lb bottom

[Steve Burke]

I partially go along with the idea of choosing by diameter rather than breaking strain. By this I mean I opt for a braid that has a higher breaking strain than what I'd use in a mono, but don't go the whole hog and use one with an identical diameter.

 

The advantage is longer casting on fixed spool (spinning) reels especially. I suspect that those who favour choosing purely by diameter use multipliers quite a bit more than I do.

 

Of course, on small waters such as most UK rivers casting distance won't be an important issue. However, it can be when bank fishing big stillwaters.

[Dave Lumb]

argyll:

Having just got some 10lb Power Pro from Dave I'm keeping my head down. I'll let you know how I get on with the Ebro catfish      

Careful, you know how your jokes get taken the wrong way

[argyll]

I use 10 lb braid only for perch and chub lure fishing and I bought a fresh spool recently to try on grayling later this year. 10lb braid is fragile stuff and on the odd occasion I've actually managed to 'crack off'1/8oz jigheads after snagging the bail arm or something similar, thats why I personally would not recommend it for barbel or anything that requires overhead casting of weights or feeders. Under those circumstances the line can be a problem. Other than that, a spool of Mitchell 10lb braid (the one that comes in the red box) has lasted two seasons without issue. It has even weathered the occasional jack attack in places where I did not expect to find pike.

I do go for a similar or slightly less diameter than mono and I do mostly use multipliers for lure fishing. For baitfishing, I use fixed spool reels loaded with 30lb Power Pro. I believe braid's strength is in its lack of stretch and ability to hook fish at distance in a way that mono won't manage. Like Budgie I've using braided lines for a long time, initially importing Dyneema (the horrible bright blue stuff) from the USA for wreck fishing so I've become aware of its strengths and weaknesses over a period of about ten years. In those heady days when we though it was all about very low diameter we used 18lb braid on flying rigs on rusty old wrecks 200 feet down fishing for 20lb plus cod, pollack and ling. Lost miles of the stuff, but it was a learning curve.

There is an inherent danger in using it just for its low diameter. I am convinced that the manufacturing process becomes slightly more flawed as the breaking strain (and diameter) drops. Imagine how thin each strand is and how manufacturing tolerances must fluctuate at that level. Flaws are built in, thats why I believe manufacturers use such high safety margins. Berkley Fireline sold as 30lb will consistently break at over 40lb. When you get to 10lb bs however there seems to be no such safety margin.

A classic case is Berkely Whiplash, hailed as the thinnest of the thin but in reality became your worse nightmare up to about 30lb bs. It was just too thin and soon had a history of breaking for no good reason. Thats why Berkely withdrew it, redesigned it and remarketed it.

 

Use too fine a line at your peril(and the fish's)

 

[ 21. September 2004, 11:35 AM: Message edited by: argyll ]