100% percent Flourocarbon help

[AndrewT]

Originally Posted by iamtheavalanche

I used 17 for flipping and pitching jigs/creature baits, 15lb for spinnerbaits,12lb for crankbaits, and 8lb and 6lb for spinning reels for drop shot and shakey head. Yea I've noticed if I fish rivers a lot for smallies it gets pretty beat up with the rocks and logs in there. Thats good advice because I my problem occurred in a pond for largemouth after fishing the river in the early part of the day for smallies.

Those are safe line strengths. Just keep checking your line and always give a pull test. As the other guys stated, your knots are very important and a pull test will let u know if you tied correctly. Whenever I have a decent fish on, I always play it on the light side with the drag. You can use mono too for certain lures too without noticing much difference (spinnerbaits and buzzbaits etc) but for feel lures, flouro is so much more sensative.

[EJS]

Originally Posted by UglyStick

To stretch out your line, go outside somewhere where you have at least 100 to 150 feet of uninterrupted space. I live in the countryside so I have plenty of room but a quiet part of a park or even a large parking lot would work fine. At one end of the space, find something unmovable to hook your lure or tie your line onto. Start walking back from it letting out line under light tension until you have about 10 yards out and stop. Point your rod tip directly at your tie off point (you want to stretch your line here, not flex your rod) and slowly and gently pull back on the rod as you feel the line stretch. I like to pull back and get a good stretch in the line and then hold it there for a few seconds and then slowly let it back forward to relieve the stretch and go back just to light tension. Give it a good stretch but don’t overdo it, you’ll get a feel for it. Walk back again letting out another 10 yards of line and repeat until you have stretched out about 30 to 50 yards of line. When finished, tip up your rod tip and under light tension reel the line back in as you walk back to your tie off point.

There’s no exact science to this but the above is what I found works well for me. If you are using KVD Line Conditioner, soak the spool full of line with it the night before and let it penetrate until the next day when you stretch out the line.

This works really well for both mono and flouro but remember that mono stretches much more than flouro so keep that in mind when your pulling on it. I know a number of guys stretch out their fly line too.

I agree with Jimmy about how most people use an improved clinch with flouro, I personally just like palomars. Here’s a decent video on Palomar knots with flouro – the general points he makes apply to most any knot though. I do suggest lubricating much more and earlier than he does in the video though. I also agree with Jimmy 100% about lubrication.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4lGUK_12Uo#t=294

On a side note, it sounds like you may want to tighten up the cast control on your reel a bit to lessen the overspooling.

UglyStick has it right, switch your knot. If thats not an option, I would say ensure the line is wet when tieing the knot. The friction burns the line and will result in break offs.

[Capt. Lou]

If u take ur light line fishing serious then u can buy the very best fluoro Blackwater, no issues with knots etc. I use their finesse line for all my troutin & landed numerous big girls over the past several seasons. Tie regular knots , no coils due to lack of memory better than many monos
its expensive so I simply purchase 300 m spools back it & use 100yds at a time. My use is primarily for trout in clear water ! Sometimes I walleye jig with it but regular run of the mill fluoros OK here, often straight mono fine as welll.
Usually lasts full season & I trout fish over 60 days per season ! Fluoro carbons R not all made the same the more refined products R Japanese who were the first to market this product! U get what u pay for. Heavier tests for salt & havy fishing many standard brands R suitable but Gamma is tops in my book in that catergory.

[briansnat]

I tried floro on my spinning reels and hate it. The tangles and wind knots were increased to the point where I spent half my time untangling knots like a newbie.

I still use floro leaders on braid with my bait casting and trolling gear however. Never again on spinning gear.

I know that doesn't answer your question but I've also heard that using the wrong knot with floro can cause line failure.

[baetis]

IMO there is a huge difference in flouro leaders and lines. I've never had a problem with it as a leader, but tried the line once and would never consider using it again. The Segauer web page says they use different resins and manufacturing procedures for each. Maybe the Japanese lines are better, never used them.

[UglyStick]

With flourocarbon lines, like most other things, you get what you pay for. They are not cheap to begin with and the better lines drastically go up in price. I suggested Seaguar InvizX as it gives me satisfactory performance at a somewhat affordable price. If price was no object, I would probably be using Seaguar Tatsu but at twice the price of InviszX, I don't see the return on investment.

As I mentioned earlier, I did a LOT of research on this before choosing a line as I didn't want to have to go through all the frustration that many have expressed here in addition to endless trial and error.

This was the first year I used 100% flouro for an entire season on 3 of my most used rod/reel combo's (2 spinning and 1 casting), not including my drop shot rod where I still just use a flouro leader, my muskie gear, trolling rods or salt gear.

I have to say I've learned a lot about where and when it makes sense to use, when it doesn't and when it doesn't really matter. I probably won't use it on my casting rod next year and will only use it in certain circumstances on my 2 go-to spinning rods. Since I have multiple spools for my spinning reels, I will just swap between either a spool of mono or a spool of flouro depending on the circumstances. In all honesty, except for a few super finesse situations, I'm of the opinion that just using a flouro leader is probably the cheapest and best solution for most all anglers and situations where flouro is even needed.