Fishermen on the beach or in boats will catch more fish when using the latest braided, fluorocarbon or monofilament lines. Photo by Milt Rosko.

It seems like only yesterday when, after arriving home from a successful fishing excursion on the coast, the first order of business for my dad and me was to carefully remove our Irish linen line from the reels and place it onto a line dryer. That was a lot of years ago, where it was necessary to be meticulous in caring for linen line, or suffer a line break on the next fishing trip.

Fortunately, synthetic lines like braided nylon and monofilament came into vogue soon; yet, even as advanced as these new lines were, each had their shortcomings from easily fraying to stretching like an elastic band. Then Dacron was introduced, with its fine diameter and little stretch qualities. And the miracle of modern line technology continues.

Quite honestly, I never thought I’d see the day when recreational anglers would have the selection that is currently available to them, including braided and fluorocarbon lines, and what has come to be known as super monofilament.

BRAIDED LINE
Perhaps the line that my wife, June, and I are most appreciative of is braided line. For in years past, when we trolled for striped bass and bluefish, we regularly employed solid Monel wire, braided wire or lead-core lines, primarily to get lures to a desired depth. Often this necessitated streaming upward of 300 feet astern as we trolled, sometimes with heavy trolling sinkers. With a combo such as this, we were able to get our spoons, plugs or leadhead jigs into 30- or 40-foot depths.

While this achieved the objective, and got the lures deep, our arms would ache after retrieving 300 feet of line with a tough striper or blue challenging your every handle turn. To say the arms were especially sore the next morning would be an understatement!

And then came braided line. Presto! Just like that, there was a line with strength, fine diameter and a no-stretch quality, and no memory, which all but abolished the heavy, unmanageable lines of the past.

Braided lines for the most part are made with either Spectra fibers, a registered trademark of Honeywell and used by American manufacturers, or Dyneema fibers, which are employed by overseas companies.

One of the greatest features of braid is its fine diameter, i.e., 30-pound-test braid has the diameter of 8-pound-test mono. This fine diameter enables you to get your trolling lures deep with little resistance while trolling. That occurs as a result of the minimal water resistance of the extremely fine braid.

Braid’s fine diameter also proves a godsend when fishing deep-water grounds in the Northeast when codfish, pollock and other species are targeted in 250- to 300-foot depths. Instead of having to use 12- to 16-ounce sinkers to hold bottom in a swift current while keeping your line perpendicular to the bottom, with braid you can hold with little difficulty while using 6 to 8 ounces of sinker weight, which makes this type of fishing much more pleasurable.

The no-stretch feature of braid has another advantage in that it immediately telegraphs even the faintest strike you receive. I regularly fish the far offshore canyons for tilefish, and we normally fish in 400- to 1,000-foot depths. I can easily hold bottom, and instantly feel a strike to promptly respond with a hookup, something that would be very difficult to achieve with other lines.

Braid can become unwieldy at times because of its fine diameter and strength. You’ll need a pair of braid-cutting scissors that are extremely sharp. If you try to cut braid with pliers or a knife, you’ll experience difficulty, to put it mildly.

FLUOROCARBON LINE
Fluorocarbon entered the recreational fishing sector as an expensive leader material. Its claim to fame was the fact it’s invisible in the water, and repeated tests have shown that by using fluorocarbon leaders rather than monofilament leaders, with the same lures and presented in the same manner, the fluorocarbon outfished the mono.