Does Color Matter in Line?

[Brendan Roll]

I am about to get some Berkley Trilene Big Game Mono #12. It comes in clear and green. Does color matter at all.

[CrankFate]

Yes Virginia, it’s true. It matters. If you choose the color you like best, it makes you filled with the magical fishing spirit.

[ratherbfishin1]

IMO unless it is really clear water, no it does not matter... go with whatever you think looks cooler on your rods

[WRB]

You are over thinking this line. When in doubt go with green.

Tom

[Catt]

Mean Green & Steel Blue are the only colors I use.

 

Why?

 

Color contrast; certain water charities & sky colors it's easier to see your line. 

[crypt]

5 hours ago, Catt said:

Mean Green & Steel Blue are the only colors I use.

 

Why?

 

Color contrast; certain water charities & sky colors it's easier to see your line. 

this......

[burrows]

It doesn't matter with mono because your probably using it for cranking and you don't really need to watch your line for cranking, now if your using it for trigs/bottom baits and you need to keep an eye on that line then go with a color that your able to see... why you would use mono for bottom baits, well, that's beyond me???

[Mobasser]

I go with green. Been using this line for years in this color

[Sam]

Brendan, you have asked another $64,000 question.

 

Easy question - difficult answer.

 

Why difficult? Because every one of us 64,000+ guys and gals on this site have their own opinion.

 

Here is my two-cents added to muddy the waters!!!!

 

I know of a pro who tells me that some of the pros are not using leaders on their braid. Yes, braid. Seems the pros are starting to use braid more and more as it lasts longer than mono or fluorocarbon, has no memory, and they do not see any difference in their strike ratios.

 

Others say that you need a leader to hide the line from the bass and they only fish with a fluorocarbon leader. Personal preference and confidence drive their decision.

 

As for me? I do not use a leader since the pro I fished with showed me how straight braid can catch them without any problem on a spinning rig. I throw green 8 pound test braid and have not seen any difference in my hook up ratio than when I used a leader when using my spinning rigs.  I don't use a leader to avoid a weak link in the line via the knot.

 

Sufix has a new braid color that Sufix claims cannot be seen by the bass. I will be getting some of this line, which you can see easily see out of the water, and use it next year without a leader. It is the Sufix 832 Advanced Braid Superline in Camo. So far the pros are saying it may be the best new line out in years and without a leader it eliminates the weak spot in the line where the leader would be attached and saves time and money retying the leader.

 

I will be using the new Sufix on both my baitcasters and spinning rigs. I am interested in how the braid will perform on a baitcaster setup. Will be another "adventure in bass fishing" for me.

 

So....bottom line is confidence. You do what you have confidence when fishing. Read all the posts for this thread and then experiment. And let us have your input next year as to what you did and the results.

 

Merry Christmas.

 

 

 

 

[Catt]

1 hour ago, Burrows said:

why you would use mono for bottom baits, well, that's beyond me???

 

Cause some of don't need crutches ?

 

Water can be clear & still have "color" to it!

 

Add in overcast skies & everything starts blending together. 

 

It's at this time I switch to Steel Blue giving me better color contrast. While I aint staring at my line I do kinda wanna know where it is.

[NYWayfarer]

I have used clear, green, red and black colored monofilament lines in super clear water situations. I didn’t notice any difference in hook up ratios between the colors.

 

That being said, I am stubborn. I won’t let go of the notion that clear line should be best in clear water situations. I have no idea how a Bass sees things but in my mind I can barely see the clear line above water so they probably can’t see it underwater.

 

[NHBull]

Heck, I don't know what fish can see.  There is little hard evidence on this topic.  I find that what I can see is more important. I admit  that I am a line watcher and braid is getting the call more often these days. I just like it.  I like pink best, yellow 2nd. If I had noticed my hookup ratio fall off, I might have rethought about it, but I have not

[Todd2]

Big Game makes a Solar Collector color that's easy on the eyes when watching. 

[fin]

What they can see and what they can understand are two totally different things. If they can see your blue tinted clear mono, then they can certainly see those big black treble hooks hanging off your crank bait. It doesn’t stop them from biting that crank bait.

 

That being said, if someone came up with clear hooks, I would buy some in a heartbeat.

 

Who knows what goes on in a fish head, but I think fish can be spooked more by the vibrations coming off the fishing line than from the sight of it.

[Oregon Native]

Have been a line watcher for years...many fish have made it to the boat without feeling the bite but seeing the line walking off.  Now I need the yellow line and clear line to watch it better.

[roadwarrior]

13 hours ago, ratherbfishin1 said:

go with whatever you think looks cooler on your rods

It's all about complimenting or contrasting, the "cool factor".  Otherwise, color

makes no difference.

 

[WRB]

Day light I wear polarized sunglasses that affect line visiblity and the translucent mono or FC lines tend to blend in with the water surface regardless of color and they all disappear underwater. 

Use a line color you are comfortable with and have confidence using, bass don't care what color line is.

Tom

[Deleted account]

8 hours ago, Burrows said:

why you would use mono for bottom baits, well, that's beyond me???

(a) cause I hate retying all the time

(b) cause I hate it when line kinks in the reel then breaks on a subsequent cast

(c) cause I have no trouble catching fish with mono

(d) all of the above

[Brendan Roll]

8 hours ago, Sam said:

Brendan, you have asked another $64,000 question.

 

Easy question - difficult answer.

 

Why difficult? Because every one of us 64,000+ guys and gals on this site have their own opinion.

 

Here is my two-cents added to muddy the waters!!!!

 

I know of a pro who tells me that some of the pros are not using leaders on their braid. Yes, braid. Seems the pros are starting to use braid more and more as it lasts longer than mono or fluorocarbon, has no memory, and they do not see any difference in their strike ratios.

 

Others say that you need a leader to hide the line from the bass and they only fish with a fluorocarbon leader. Personal preference and confidence drive their decision.

 

As for me? I do not use a leader since the pro I fished with showed me how straight braid can catch them without any problem on a spinning rig. I throw green 8 pound test braid and have not seen any difference in my hook up ratio than when I used a leader when using my spinning rigs.  I don't use a leader to avoid a weak link in the line via the knot.

 

Sufix has a new braid color that Sufix claims cannot be seen by the bass. I will be getting some of this line, which you can see easily see out of the water, and use it next year without a leader. It is the Sufix 832 Advanced Braid Superline in Camo. So far the pros are saying it may be the best new line out in years and without a leader it eliminates the weak spot in the line where the leader would be attached and saves time and money retying the leader.

 

I will be using the new Sufix on both my baitcasters and spinning rigs. I am interested in how the braid will perform on a baitcaster setup. Will be another "adventure in bass fishing" for me.

 

So....bottom line is confidence. You do what you have confidence when fishing. Read all the posts for this thread and then experiment. And let us have your input next year as to what you did and the results.

 

Merry Christmas.

 

 

 

 

Thank you so much for the thought out answer! I will definitely come back with a response after a few weeks of fishing it. Thank you for everyone else's input, it has helped greatly.

[Big-Bass]

I just picked up some Sunlike in blue so I wonder how visible it will be (if any) underwater.

[WRB]

1 hour ago, Big-Bass said:

I just picked up some Sunlike in blue so I wonder how visible it will be (if any) underwater.

You must be using Sunline braid.

Toray FC offers a steel blue transparent line and I can't see underwater.

A freind of mine uses Stren Hi Vis chartreuse mono and I tell him  you can't get bit using that line in our clear water high pressured lakes and says get the net.

Tom

[Big-Bass]

On 12/9/2018 at 2:50 PM, WRB said:

You must be using Sunline braid.

Tom

Nope.  Sunline mono in Mizu Blue.  

 

https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Sunline_Super_Natural_Monofilament_330yd/descpage-SLSNM.html

[islandbass]

12 hours ago, Burrows said:

why you would use mono for bottom baits, well, that's beyond me???

Why not? (rhetorical question of course) I can see a whole bunch of timers who might come across this start chuckling when mono was pretty much all there was to use, lol. 

 

Just have a little fun lightly ribbin’ you. I use mono most of the time and have been consistently for the past few years for most applications.

 

Sometime I’ll treat myself to a spool of 6# sea guar fc, but it’s mono on economic grounds. I like braid and fc for all their traits but it’s mono for economic reasons. I tend to lose more line than anything else  since I face nasty rip rap (break offs) primarily drop shotting going for smallies from the shore. 6# mono has done nearly as good and mono works well for the moving baits I throw. Hence, my primary use of mono. 

 

Besides, the last time I used crutches was when I broke my right ankle in two places, lol. 

[WRB]

On 12/9/2018 at 3:03 PM, Big-Bass said:

Nope.  Sunline mono in Mizu Blue.  

 

https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Sunline_Super_Natural_Monofilament_330yd/descpage-SLSNM.html

I see said the blind man!

Tom

[Log Catcher]

The clear or green will both be okay. I fished with a fellow several years ago that tried some red mono when red was all the rage about everything. He never caught a fish until he took it off and put some clear line on his setups.