Need some input with line choice advantages

[numbskull]

Originally Posted by Back Beach

Mono would have to be $15-20 per month if you're keeping up with it. Spool depletes quickly from cutting back and I find after 4-5 trips my 15-20# mono is toast and loses most of its strength.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Those damn sunfish certainly take their toll.

[Steve K]

Mono degrades in sunlight.

[SeaWolf]

dennis, braid does not directly cause rod failure, anglers and manufacturers cause the failures we hear/read about. so many failures are blamed on the rod or braid or whatever, but it's almost always a case of high-sticking, overpowering the rod's ratings, fishing drags way too tight, or carelessness, which few own up to. yes, there are manufacturers that have had issues w/ a certain series or model due to pushed development or poorly designed guide trains. yes, occasionally a blem does come thru, but it's rare. however, braid has changed the rod blank industry in how they design blanks from lessons learned early on, such as ron arra series. also, guide selection has changed so that wind knots are lessened. i can fish weeks w/o a wind knot personally, but i build my own rods too. looking at a rod from the 80s, to a rod in the late 90s, to a rod today, it's amazing the changes, and most of that is what you can see. anglers that have fished mono didn't loosen their drag when they switched to braid; most increased drag pressure since they slipped easier when fighting fish. where does that pressure now go? ferrules, blanks, and reels. newer blanks have a lot of technology to now compensate for "braids" or mainly the new pressures put on them due to strain originally absorbed by mono. one advantage not talked about here yet is that braid essentially pushed blank design and rod design to make rods lighter and more enjoyable to fish!

i have found little advantage to fishing mono over braid. not needing gloves or a casting finger to cast would be one and possible easier to untangle if fishing around other anglers fishing braid, which is huge on a dark night, when the bite is on, and guys are trying to untangle instead of just cutting. basically, speed of untangling. i also noticed my knots were failing less on braid than when compared to mono.

[Got Stripers]

You would have to kill me to get my braid, I've not fished mono in a decade, fishing light gear and plastic; braid sensitivity is not something I'd ever give up. After you get past the learning curve, the advantages so far outweight the disadvantages. Yes fishing around ledges can be frustrating with braid and rock not being too friendly, but a longer fluro leader can eliminate a lot of the premature breakoffs.

If I were a surfcaster, I might be singing a different tune, but as a boater; braid is king.

[DZ]

More good stuff - thanks.

Seawolf - I didn't mean to say infer that braid "directly" causes rod breaks in all instances. I was just trying to corralate the fact that when mono was the primary line in use you very rarely saw blanks fail. In all my years I saw less than a handfull break while using mono - usually the caster was a fault. Blank failure started with the first use of braid in freshwater - when using it the bass pros were popping graphite blanks on the hookset - if they used mono those same rods held up nicely. Nowadays the new surf blanks pop with alarming regularity - in most every case braid was being used. Mono is definitly more forgiving when it comes to blanks breaking. Maybe rods failing is now just considered "the cost of doing business"?

[SeaWolf]

i hear ya, dennis. well, a real true test would have to involve a lot of these newer rods built as COF or large NGC for mono. then, how are the blank failures? and, how many "wind knots" would be lessened if anglers used a rod properly designed for braid vs just a COF ceramic guide layout?
i'm willing to bet that 95%+ of anglers fishing the surf today, and the vast majority on these sites, are using braid. braid today is like mono in the early-mid 90s. i don't think you can write a small article on this subject, including the braid vs mono blank failures, and have all the information. in my opinion, if you take away manufacturers blank design flaws, manufacturer rod design flaws, blems, the majority of the breaks left would be due to angler negligence. i've build tuna popping rods for BFT where the powers and pressures were much larger than in surf fishing. the only failures i received were due to the angler.
it just has always bothered me when i hear/read a rod/blank being blamed when it eventually comes out that is was in fact due to the angler. there were countless ones on another site that started as a manufacturer bashing thread when it was due to the angler, but the damage to the manufacturer's reputation was already done since most didn't read all 13 pages. again, i'm removing rods/blanks w/ design flaws.
like i said, i don't see enough advantages to fish mono over braid in the surf.

[tlapinski]

I added a few notes to your post below. As an aside, I use braid 99% of the time.

Super Braids (Disadvantages)
1. High cost – initially yes, long-term no
2. Wind knots impossible to untangle – practically non-existent when braid is used/spooled correctly
3. Hook-up to land ratio: Dropped fish when allowed to go slack – is this any different than what is experienced with mono?
4. Abrasion resistance is poor – only on some brands
5. No stretch destroys rod blanks - any proof of this?
6. Very hard to break when you’re hung up. - not nearly as difficult as 30-plus-pound mono IMO
7. Braid buries on spool when under extreme pressure sometimes causing line to cut itself. – again, only when used/spooled incorrectly

Monofilament (Advantages)
1. Affordability – initially but not on long term
2. Shock absorbency – the ability for mono to stretch on high impact strikes offers insurance.
3. Abrasion resistance in boulder fields is a huge advantage for monofilament. - adding a long leader greatly lessens this advantage
4. Ability to tie direct without leader when a subtle presentation is necessary. – only really an issue in very limited situations
5. More forgiving in overcoming mistakes. For example monofilament will stretch quite a bit if a drag is set too tight. This will allow a caster to back off the tension before the line breaks.
6. Improved hook-up to land ratio. I found that monofilament allows for a better hook-up/land ratio because the stretch in mono always seems to help keep a tight line when a bass is thrashing on the surface. – but what about poor hook-set of mono due to stretch? That kind of off-sets any in fight advantage IMO.