mono or braid

[Bob Senior]

For what it's worth, I've been using braids since they first came out. PowerPro is now on all my spinning rigs; Suffix mono is on all my conventionals. Braids I've tried over the years are SpiderWire, FireLine, MagiBraid, Ripcord, and PP. I find PP is the best in terms of strength, small diameter, abrasion resistance, but it bleaches out in color very quickly (not an issue to me, though). It'll cut you like a knife if you're not careful pulling a fish out of the water, though.

Biggest problem I had with braids was on reels that have bushings instead of bearings in the line roller in the bail. Bushed rollers seem to roll less often than ones with bearings, so the line slides over the roller more, rather than causing the roller to roll with the line. This is exacerbated by braids that are almost greasy slick and cause less surface tension on the rollers. Further, most of the braids have a flat profile rather than round. They're like ribbon. So, when I was using all Penn SSs and Zs (bushed bearings), I'd get tremendous twists outside the roller, especially when landing a fish. As soon as slack would occur, the twisted line would next wrap onto the reel and then all hell would break loose.

PowerPro is round in profile, like mono. So it has a much lower tendency to twist outside a non-rolling roller. I also gave my Penns to sons-in-law, sons, and grandkids and bought Shimano Sustains, with good bearings in the line rollers but otherwise not as durable as the old Penns. Sustains require a lot of TLC but they are otherwise great reels, for my purposes anyway.

I even use 65# PP as shock leader on monster rods.

For knots, the only one that I haven't had problems with is the uni for attachment, and uni-to-uni for joining lines.

PP hasn't frayed like my SpiderWire and FireLine either. I know that they say the fraying isn't a problem, but I just didn't like it. They would get pretty ratty very fast.

I have almost all 20# PP on everything, with 65# shock leaders on the big rods. I load it myself and buy the biggest spools I can find to keep the per foot costs lower. It's still too expensive.

Last point: Biggest problem with PP and other braids is when you have to join two lines, such as putting a 65# shock leader on the end of, say, a 14#, 17# or 20# main line. That uni-to-uni now will pick up any loose wraps on the reel during a cast, and you instantly have a ball of line around the knot. I've had them pull the ceramic inserts right out of Fuji silicon carbide guides. I have used this stuff enough now that I can tell by the sound of a small clump going through the guides that it's there. And now I just cut it out and retie rather than ignoring it like I used to do.

'Sorry this is so long. Hope it helps someone. Oh, and if you try PP, bring your checkbook!!

[Bassman18]

Originally posted by Bob Senior
Biggest problem I had with braids was on reels that have bushings instead of bearings in the line roller in the bail. Bushed rollers seem to roll less often than ones with bearings, so the line slides over the roller more, rather than causing the roller to roll with the line. This is exacerbated by braids that are almost greasy slick and cause less surface tension on the rollers. Further, most of the braids have a flat profile rather than round. They're like ribbon. So, when I was using all Penn SSs and Zs (bushed bearings), I'd get tremendous twists outside the roller, especially when landing a fish. As soon as slack would occur, the twisted line would next wrap onto the reel and then all hell would break loose.

Thanks Bob, I'm a little confused about bushings and bearings. Are those found in spinning reels, conventional reels, or both?

[scoobe]

Perhaps some close up pics would help clarify the bushing/bearing topic?

[Bassman18]

that might help a bit

[fishweewee]

Originally posted by Bassman18
weewee, could you explain to me how to tie an overhand lock knot?

just a simple knot, like you would tie your shoelaces with.

[fishweewee]

Originally posted by Bassman18
ok, I have a little question with that process, I'm gonna spool some braided line on a penn 330GTi, however, it's also spooled with #40 mono. My question is this, if I use your method of wet packing, will the braided line be embedded in the mono and cause tangles within the spool? Or should I just reel in a good layer of braided line then wet pack it from there?

You will actually NEED some mono base layers on the bottom for the braided line to "stick" to the spool. Otherwise, the line would slip as the spool revolves!

Wet pack the braid on top of the mono, after you have tied a modified albright knot that connects the mono to the braid.

[Bob Senior]

Scoobe:

I don't have pictures of spinning reel line rollers on bushings. But it's a straightforward matter. It's Item # 6085 in the SF4000FD reel parts diagram on the shimano website: http://fish.shimano.com/publish/cont.../sa4000fd.html

The line roller is the thing on the bail that line slides over as it is wrapped onto the spool. It is mounted on the pickup end of the bail. On cheap reels there is no roller, just the wire of the bail that the line slides over.

On better reels there is a roller, a grooved wheel, mounted in the bail so as to "pick up" the line when the bail closes after a cast, so that the reel can be cranked to bring back the line. The better the roller rotates as line slides over it, the less is the tendency for twist that might be in the line to be "blocked" and built up just outside the roller.

Rollers that are mounted on a bearing tend to hang up less than rollers mounted on bushings--no guarantees though. A bushing is simply a metal tube that slips over a metal rod so that the tube (with a line roller attached to it) can rotate around the rod. Penn SSs and Zs have bushed rollers. Shimanos, Daiwas, Van Staals, and others have rollers mounted on bearings.

On conventional reels, the only thing even remotely related to spining reels' line rollers would be the part of a levelwind system that the line slides through, like on an abu 6500 CS, for example, but they have much less affect on the performance of the pickup function of a conventional reel than on a spinning reel.

Does that help?

[scoobe]

Well I knew what a line roller was. I think pretty much all the reels these days come with one.

I was just wondering if it was easy to tell between the bushing and bearing models. I guess you can't really tell from the outside and would have to look at a schematic.

Thanks for the thorough explanation, though.

[scoobe]

For those of you who like Fireline... there is a sale going on for amost alll Berkley products at eangler.com. You can get the 125 yard spools of Fireline for 12.99. I'm not sure if that's a good price or not as I've never bought the stuff. I may stock up on PowerBait, though.

[Notaro]

that's not a good price. that's the kind of price you get from wal-mart. if it's a 12.50 for one 300 yards of fireline, i will take it.