Mono Line With MOST Stretch ?

[ChrisD46]

I'm looking to run an an experiment with a 7' H/F Veritas around weeds with a bladed jig and a lipless crank and want a mono with a lot of stretch ... What #4 - #17 mono has the most stretch in your opinion ? ... Off the top of my head - I'm thinking Stren #14 lb. mono would have a lot of stretch - your thoughts & experiences ?  

[Deephaven]

Lighter line will stretch more.

 

Personally I do the opposite, albeit with a MH.  Straight braid for weeds.  Let's you rip the rattler right from the weeds.

[FishTank]

Original Stren comes to mind as well.  That is all my buddy fishes and refuses to try anything else.  Around weeds it's OK.  This one of the few instances where I would use braid. It does a much better job of cutting through weeds.   Stren in weeds doesn't cut. It sort of bounces from weed to weed, gathering as it goes.  On average, it's great for most applications.  Hook sets need to be hard as this line stretches a lot more over time.  

 

Mono for weeds, Big Game and Trilene XT use to be what I used but less stretch. Now, my personal preference is 15 or 20lb Abraxz FC.

 

 

[ChrisD46]

9 minutes ago, FishTank said:

Original Stren come to mind as well.  That is all my buddy fishes and refuses to try anything else.  Around weeds it's OK.  This one of the few instances where I would use braid. It does a much better job of cutting through weeds.   Stren in weeds doesn't cut. It sort of bounces from weed to weed, gathering as it goes.  On average, it's great for most applications.  Hook sets need to be hard as this line stretches a lot more over time.  

 

Mono for weeds, Big Game and Trilene XT use to be what I used but less stretch. Now, my personal preference is 15 or 20lb Abraxz FC.

 

 

*Good reply - I will do better to use this set up outside of the weed line .

33 minutes ago, Deephaven said:

Lighter line will stretch more.

 

Personally I do the opposite, albeit with a MH.  Straight braid for weeds.  Let's you rip the rattler right from the weeds.

Thanks , #12 lb. Stren is cheap enough to try for the added stretch .

[FryDog62]

I did a stretch test about 5 years ago that included 6 mono lines. Top of the least is least stretch, and #6 (You got it Stren) is most stretch:

 

1) Trilene XT 

2) Sufix Seige 

3) Trilene XL 

4) Tectan Superior 

5) Berkley Sensation 

6) Original Blue Stren 

[Team9nine]

Ditto on the above comments; historically, original Stren has always been high stretch. It’s one reason why I use it the most as a leader material with braid.

[Tennessee Boy]

I would be willing to bet that every brand of mono would stretch exactly the same as any other brand with the same diameter.  It's all just nylon so why would one brand be any different than another?  I'm no chemist so I may not know what I'm talking about but I would be willing to bet that's the case.  I wouldn't be surprised if half of them came out of the same factory and the only difference is the packaging.

[MN Fisher]

Just now, Tennessee Boy said:

I would be willing to bet that every brand of mono would stretch exactly the same as any other brand with the same diameter.  It's all just nylon so why would one brand be any different than another?  I'm no chemist so I may not know what I'm talking about but I would be willing to bet that's the case.

Having actually made raw nylon back in my college organic chem class - there are slight variations in the chemistry that can affect stretch, durability and longevity. Different brands use those slight variations to get the qualities they want in the line.

 

So yes - they're all nylon, but no - they're not identical.

[BrianMDTX]

4 minutes ago, MN Fisher said:

Having actually made raw nylon back in my college organic chem class

Was that Nylon 66?

[MN Fisher]

1 minute ago, BrianMDTX said:

Was that Nylon 66?

I think so - that was 42 years ago, so the memory is a little rusty.

[Tennessee Boy]

26 minutes ago, MN Fisher said:

Having actually made raw nylon back in my college organic chem class - there are slight variations in the chemistry that can affect stretch, durability and longevity. Different brands use those slight variations to get the qualities they want in the line.

 

So yes - they're all nylon, but no - they're not identical.

Let me share what I was told about 25 years ago.  My source was a coworker and fishing buddy.  He had a family member who worked in the industry that told him this.  You can judge the reliability of the source for yourself and things certainly could have changed in the last 25 year.

 

He said that there are two formulations of nylon mono used in the fishing line industry.  Both were originally developed by Dupont.   At the time only Stren Magnathin and some other other foreign brands like Tectan used the newer one.  All the other brand used the original one.  He said that the differences in brands were just color, marketing and variations in line diameter.  For example,  abrasion resistance brands might use a larger diameter for the same # test to provide better abrasion resistance.  

 

Again,  I can't vouch for the credibility of the original source and a lot could have changed in 25 years.  I do think people over estimate how much engineering goes into most of the fishing products we buy.  They are not doing materials research,  they are buying raw materials from the companies that develop them.

 

 

 

 

[Mobasser]

Years ago, I threw everything on original Stren 14lb mono, before I tried Big Game. I used the same Stren in 4 or 6lb for crappie fishing, and would catch bass also. I never noticed a lot of stretch in the 14lb, but did notice stretch in the 4lb, when a 2lb or bigger bass was hooked .

 

[bulldog1935]

In my polymer processing research paper, took as-extruded nylon, hot-drawn, and compared to cold-drawn, using single-crystal diffraction to show the diffuse rings focusing into fringed micelles in the 3:1 reduced mono.  

 

The worst line that ever duplicated my experiment was Berkley copolymer that extruded to half its diameter while my daughter caught 3 big sheepshead - the thinner line dug into the spool and shut down my daughter's day.  It's ok, though, we were fished out and took home a meal of specs. 

 

 

The best lab I worked in during college was a star wars cryogenic refrigerator using zeolite adsorption/desorption and a nitrous-oxide loop to pre-cool the LN2 loop.  We had more than one system dump.  

[MickD]

1 hour ago, MN Fisher said:

there are slight variations in the chemistry that can affect stretch,

Slight.  For the purpose under question, I'll bet the differences are inconsequential, and as someone mentioned, the lighter the pound test the more stretch.  I find all the monos, FC's, and mixes to have more stretch than I want except for braid to lure leaders.

[Tennessee Boy]

13 minutes ago, bulldog1935 said:

In my polymer processing research paper, took as-extruded nylon, hot-drawn, and compared to cold-drawn, using single-crystal diffraction to show the diffuse rings focusing into fringed micelles in the 3:1 reduced mono.  

 

The best lab I worked in, though, was a star wars cryogenic refrigerator using zeolite adsorption/desorption and a nitrous-oxide loop to pre-cool the LN2 loop.  We had more than one system dump.  

........so ... did it stretch very much?  

[galyonj]

7 minutes ago, Tennessee Boy said:

I do think people over estimate how much engineering goes into most of the fishing products we buy.  They are not doing materials research,  they are buying raw materials from the companies that develop them.

 

I would agree with this. Further, the marketing materials for fishing line seem to pretty intentionally muddy the water, if you will.

 

I'm not picking on Berkley, but they make for an easy comparison because they have so many monofilament product lines, and it'd be reasonable to assume they source the raw materials for all their monofilament lines from the same materials manufacturer (and if they don't, they're hurting their bottom line and, boy howdy, wouldn't that be embarrassing).

 

Anyway, Berkley has like 10 different monofilament product offerings, and the descriptions all read like ad copy mad libs, touting toughness, controlled stretch, remarkable knot strength, sensitivity reminiscent of that time we had to climb the ropes in gym class, hair regrowth, fuller and longer-lasting...you get the idea.

 

The salient point here is that, at any given test rating, Sensation, Transoptic, Big Game, XT, and XL all only differ by a couple thousandths of an inch.

 

Of course Trilene XL has lower memory and more stretch than Trilene XT. It's thinner.

[FishTank]

51 minutes ago, bulldog1935 said:

The best lab I worked in during college was a star wars cryogenic refrigerator using zeolite adsorption/desorption and a nitrous-oxide loop to pre-cool the LN2 loop.  We had more than one system dump.  

 

Just saying 

 

 

[BrianMDTX]

1 hour ago, MN Fisher said:

I think so - that was 42 years ago, so the memory is a little rusty.

It was 46 years ago for me lol. Chemistry in HS. I remember pouring one liquid atop another and using a hook to pull the nylon 66 that was created where the two liquids were separated. I’m guessing the ol’ Remington Nylon 66 got its name from that. 

[lunch]

Stren-tch...

[CrankFate]

Original stren, purple. I am cracking open a spool from at least 25 years ago for tomorrow (not for bass). 17lb it is the stretchiest line there is, especially of that vintage. The newer version still had rubber band stretch, but the mid 80’s to mid 90’s had to be a different formula.

[Happybeerbuzz]

I don't know if it is the most stretchy, but Suffix Elite stretches quite a bit. It is pretty strong too.  

 

[ChrisD46]

20 hours ago, FryDog62 said:

I did a stretch test about 5 years ago that included 6 mono lines. Top of the least is least stretch, and #6 (You got it Stren) is most stretch:

 

1) Trilene XT 

2) Sufix Seige 

3) Trilene XL 

4) Tectan Superior 

5) Berkley Sensation 

6) Original Blue Stren 

*Surprised by #5 as I would have thought being a newer , premium line that Berkley Sensation would rate closer to the top of the list with least stretch .

[FryDog62]

2 hours ago, ChrisD46 said:

*Surprised by #5 as I would have thought being a newer , premium line that Berkley Sensation would rate closer to the top of the list with least stretch .

This test was done 4-5 years ago and I'm trying to remember when Berkley reformulated Sensation... it might be a little different now..?

[Team9nine]

4 hours ago, ChrisD46 said:

*Surprised by #5 as I would have thought being a newer , premium line that Berkley Sensation would rate closer to the top of the list with least stretch .

 

Agreed. I ran a bunch of tests years back comparing lines and Sensation was always toward the ‘least stretch’ end of the spectrum from what I recall. I’ll have to see if I can dig up some of the old data.

[Westcoast]

I find  that sunline super natural has a crazy amount of stretch. I use maxima as my mono. Not the least and not the most stretch but has great durability and lack of memory. Or at least it loses it memory easily  with a good pull on the line at the start of the day.