Northwest Fishing Reports

I would like to hear your opinion on mono vs. braid. I am buying a new spinning reel for finnesse fishing (i.e. senkos, french fries, grubs, etc). Which do you prefer? I am leaning towards flourocarbon also. Tight Lines.

In my honest opinion mono is by far the best. its cheaper easier and just better. but if you want a good reel go with the shimanos high ends tho. 130 plus. dont pay less.

I spooled up with flouro only a couple weeks ago - it was such a headache with the memory and line twisting that ill never do it again. Some people get by with it but the advantages were not worth it for me. I have a spare spool with braid on it that I'll use occasionally for heavy slop and reaction baits but I mostly use mono. Sometimes I'll use the braid with a flouro leader for other purposes but braid floats too much for my taste for some applications.

Flouro is the only way to go if you are finesse fishing (assuming ur talking drop shot or shaky head). Flouro will twist badly if you do not load it onto a spinning reel properly. The trick is to continually change the direction the line is coming off the spool. You have to continually check if it is twisting while loading it. If it begins to twist, stop and turn the spool the other direction then you can keep loading. I run flouro on my drop shot rods and have never had a problem doing so. Not only will braid float but it is also highly visible in clear water, which is where finesse fishing works best. Flouro is virtually invisible in clearer waters. If your talking about light line fishing in pads, then braid is by far the way to go. Again the main issue is going to be floatation. Down side of that will be having a hard time getting the presentation down if your not using weight. The upside being you will be able to detect strikes by seeing line movement and by feel, braid is extremely sensitive, far more sensitive than mono or flouro. The major benefit of braid in pads is it will cut the pads and not wrap up in them. Hope this helps ya.

Another thing to take into consideration is that fact that mono will stretch while braid does not give at all. It really depends on what you are going to be fishing like skeeter bassin said. Floro is the way to go for light line clear water situations. But it you are fishing heavy cover braid isn't a bad idea. I mostly use mono for crankbaits, rattle traps, and other applications where you need to give a sweeping hook set when the hook up ratio is low. I dont believe that any one of these three lines is a great all purpose line but are all fantastic for different situations.

Thanx for the input. I decided to leave the florou alone and braid is not right for finnesse situations. I am going with the Sufix brand of lines. They got outstanding reviews on basspro dot com. I'll give it a try and if I like it I will probally switch all of my reels to Sufix, except for my heavy cover rod which currently has Fireline on it.

Mono all the way. I hate braided line I think it casts horribly and I think it might eat up you guides at least it sounds that way when you reel it in.

I would go with mono before braid. Ive been using mono for a long time. Braid dose have a smaller diameter but try getting a snag undone with that stuff. You end up getting a stronger line cuz your reel can handle it. I think 8lb mono has the same diameter as 20lb braid so when your faced with that decision of course your going to go bigger. To me its just easier to snap the line instead of messing with it for 10 minutes and pulling up a 50lb water logged stump, or having to cut off 30 yards of EXPENSIVE braid. I only use braid when Im salmon fishing in deep water where I know I wont snag

braid is awesome for fishing jigs and carolina rigs. not only does it have zero stretch, meaning a good hard hook set will penetrate a bunched up plastic worm and find the fish's mouth, but it also has by far the best feel of any line, hands down. you can twitch a jig along the bottom and instantly know what's on the bottom, whether it be rock, sand, weeds, whatever. I also like it for throwing big crankbaits on a medium heavy rod rod, because the lures have so much action it's hard to get a good feel. With braid on you can tell easily when your plug gets even the smallest piece of weed on it and the action changes slightly.

As far as snagging, I consider it an advantage that I can wrestle and pull forever on 20 lb braid and eventually work my bait free, as opposed to having mono instantly snap and losing your lure. it's one thing if you have a 10 cent hook and half a nightcrawler on fishing for trout, but if you bass fish like me chances are your lure cost you around half as much as a spool of braid anyways. if i'm throwing into heavy cover, braid is an absolute must.

That said i still use mono a lot, especially for surface lures, because braid floats and your popper/stickbait will sometimes get ahead of your line and tangle up. Also i use mono for weightless plastics.

Lastly, i've had Fireline on one of my poles for over a year now with heavy use, and the guides are still in perfect shape. Also in my opinion i think braid casts fantastic, and has far less memory than mono. The only problem you'll run into is that it is absolutely a pain to put on your reel, so much so that i would say it's impossible to do by yourself without a spooling station. I have White's spool all my reels for me, and now that they are closing i'm not sure what i'm going to do.

Braided lines will chew up your ceramic guides...

for the type of fishing you described i would use mono for sure. if you are going for mainly smallies i'd go with 6lb. i only use braid for my flippin' stick. i use McCoy co-polymer for everything else.

CK14 wrote:for the type of fishing you described i would use mono for sure. if you are going for mainly smallies i'd go with 6lb. i only use braid for my flippin' stick. i use McCoy co-polymer for everything else.

CK14 whats the lowdown on co-polymer lines? Pros and cons to mono and braids.

Love the question, and respect all of the above answers. But I do want to give some input.

I take my fishing very very very serious. My tackle box(s) contain more reals than most people have lures. Have you every heard that you should use the right tool for the right job?

Braids are great, I prefer Pro Line, for conditions where you want low streatch and small diameter. The strength is an excellent advantage as well. If you find yourself fishing a rubber worm for bass in 20+ feet of water some day than you will understand. Oh yea, as indicated above, it is great in cover, if you want to pull through cover and not over it (can cut into some cover and not ride over it).

Mono is great when added streatch is wanted. I think that the need can be overstated, but if you want a stiff rod, and need streatch with crank baits, etc., then there is only one way to get it. A big fat diameter mono also works well when I am flipping old trees and brush because it does not cut into the soft wood as easily. It kind of rides over it.

Flouro is a mess to cast, twist bad, terrible memory, burns if you don't lubricate you knot, and I won't leave home without it. Well, most of the time I use it as a leader only, but still, won't leave home without it.

Co and Multi Polymers are just different types of Mono. Not all mono line is created equal, so the polys are just a different way to improve it. Some is better, some is not.

I short, I find that 75% of my fishing is with brades, 25% is with Mono's, 50% of the aforementioned conditions use a Flouro leader.

I fished 8-10 lb. mono on a spinning rod for years for casting light weight lures like Rapalas and was broken off several times. I tried a few braided lines and didn't like them until I tried 15 lb Power Pro line. I have hooked several lunkers on that line and find I can play hard ball with those bruisers now. That includes a nice 5-15 I recently caught on a Rapala on Kitsap Lake.

The bottom line is that you can't simply choose a line and use it for all the applications.

I use about 6 to 10 lbs. fluorocarbon lines for the finesse fishing and I even started using a 30 lbs. fluorocarbon line when I throw my huge BZZ-1 swimbait. Some pros like KVD reported in that they started to use fluorocarbon lines for the jerkbaits 'cause they feel that the fluorocarbon line will give more erratic movement when you jerk it hard.
Note: clear water and the line has a little stretch

I love to use 50 lbs. braided lines when I am flipping a heavy jig into a nastiest vegetation I could find and I use the same line and flipping rod to fish a frog like Zoom's Horny Toad over the same heavy vegetation. I never make a sweat when I hook a lunker in the heavy cover 'cause I know my 50 lbs. line won't break off. Some pros like Luke Clausen would use a braided line with a fluorocarbon leader for the finesse fishing. I need to experiment with this tactic but I need to learn to tie the improved blood knot or something.
Note: stained water or heavy cover and the line has no stretch.

I adore monofilament lines for all of my crankbait, spinnerbait, and topwater fishing applications. For crankbait fishing, I use from 8 to 17 lbs. monofilament lines. For spinnerbait and topwater fishing, I use 12 lbs. mono lines or up.

Note: the line has more stretch and it helps when you use a lure with the treble hooks.

I use P-Line products 90 percent of the time.

On all my finesse reels I use fluoro. I agree that it has terrible memory and findly found a brand that is tremendous. Gamma Edge line is excellent. By far it is the best I have used. Hardly any memory. Where most people have issues is that they do not change their line enough. You definitely can not go the whole season with the same line. I generally change all fluoro line before a tournament and remember to retie after catching a decent sized fish.

I also agree about braid for c-rig and flipping, that is what I use. My choice on mono has been Cajun red.

Lip Rippa wrote:

CK14 wrote:for the type of fishing you described i would use mono for sure. if you are going for mainly smallies i'd go with 6lb. i only use braid for my flippin' stick. i use McCoy co-polymer for everything else.

CK14 whats the lowdown on co-polymer lines? Pros and cons to mono and braids.

sorry i didn't respond to this a long time ago, i guess i just forgot this topic

as far as i understand, copolymer is something like a mix of mono & floro. all i know is that it seems like it's less twisty and is stronger then other companies mono lines.

Silent Angler wrote:The bottom line is that you can't simply choose a line and use it for all the applications.

I use P-Line products 90 percent of the time.

I cut up Silent Anglers post for what I agree with. I use both braid and mono. It depends on the application. I use braid for both trolling and regular fishing. I also use mono for both. Depends on what I'm fishing for and how.

Also, my preference is for P-Line products as I like their fluoro. I also use Maxima Ultra-Green. The braid I use mostly is P-Line and Fireline.

Bill

CK14 wrote:

Lip Rippa wrote:

CK14 wrote:for the type of fishing you described i would use mono for sure. if you are going for mainly smallies i'd go with 6lb. i only use braid for my flippin' stick. i use McCoy co-polymer for everything else.

CK14 whats the lowdown on co-polymer lines? Pros and cons to mono and braids.

sorry i didn't respond to this a long time ago, i guess i just forgot this topic

as far as i understand, copolymer is something like a mix of mono & floro. all i know is that it seems like it's less twisty and is stronger then other companies mono lines.

I like yozuri hybrid ultrasoft(<---important) if I use a copoly. Hows the memory on the mccoy?

it's good, IMO it can't be that bad if it's the only line i use...know what i mean? :compress: