Braided line and backlash tendency

[Koz]

I always find posts like this amusing (to me) because me and 40 pound braid on a baitcaster go together like peas and carrots since day one. But flouro on a baitcaster is my kryptonite.

[Hammer 4]

Just for giggles, I spooled up 30# Diawa Samurai braid on a Shimano 301 E7, never had any issues with digging or backlashes.

[softwateronly]

16 hours ago, Delaware Valley Tackle said:

The size of the backing has no bearing on casting, but you wasted some money using fluoro as backing. The problem isn’t braid it’s wrong braid (too thin diameter), bait vs practice plug, poor setup (too loose for learning, and throwing slack into the line during retrieve. You need to clear the spool occasionally of loops and slack. 

 

Not being argumentative because you certainly have more experience, but you've never had the 3rd or 4th bottom layer of thin braid get into the heavy backing because the last layer of braid doesn't fully cover?  Also, the connection knot can get line lay a little wonky.  I think most of my personal trouble with this issue was too much backing, but I feel it's valid on casts that get past 2/3rds spool.  Using a light mono backing for me allows the braid to be used until I start spooling to backing without issue.

 

scott

[Bird]

20 lb Power pro on all my bait casters for years.......no digging, no nests.

[Catt]

On 3/26/2022 at 11:08 PM, ArtificialLureCaster said:

I am a novice baitcasting reel user. Actually, today was my second day of using one

 

Some of y'all need to work on your reading comprehention skills.

[Bird]

23 minutes ago, Catt said:

 

Some of y'all need to work on your reading comprehention skills.

You are correct sir but threads like this often spawn false information........ like 50# braid is required on all bait casters to prevent digging and backlash, simply not true.

[Deephaven]

The other fact is that as a new caster you will birds bknest bad enough to have to cut off the line.  It will happen.  Start with cheap line.  Take off what you have and learn and then put it back on.

[dodgeguy]

7 hours ago, Bird said:

You are correct sir but threads like this often spawn false information........ like 50# braid is required on all bait casters to prevent digging and backlash, simply not true.

Nobody said Required !!! It's a suggestion from over 30 years of braid use.ive used lighter but to me there is no point.. there's no way 30 lb never digs unless you have a really lose drag or catch sunnies all day. If you horse a 5 lber out of a ton of thick weeds it will dig for sure and dig worse than 50 lb. That's just a fact. To each his own.

[Bird]

On 3/27/2022 at 9:48 AM, dodgeguy said:

This my friend is why you never go below 50 lb braid on a baitcaster. 

Politefully put, this has not been my experience with baitcasters.

[new2BC4bass]

9 hours ago, Catt said:

 

Some of y'all need to work on your reading comprehension skills.

I caught that it was only his 2nd time using the reel.  My first thought was he is already a better caster than I am.  Very few of my reels (probably none) can be run with only 3 brakes on. (Magnetic brake only reels.)  Especially with only enough spool tension to remove side to side play.

 

When I asked about braid on my baitcaster, it was suggested I go 40# or heavier.  I went 40# and have never had a problem with dig ins even after pulling a canoe over to the snag so I could get it free.  Since then I've also used 30# without a problem...doing the same thing.

 

I think newbies don't realize the line has to be kept tight on the spool.  Whenever I see my braid is getting loose (from retrieving lures that put little pressure on the rod...such as unweighted worms), I make a long cast and hold the line snugly between my fingers on the retrieve to tighten the line back up on the spool.

[detroit1]

A $40 reel will make it very hard to learn how to use a baitcaster. 

[CrashVector]

First: 20lb braid or heavier.  I use 20lb Hercules 8 carrier no fade braid on my baitcasters.  Better yet: 12lb/test mono like trilene big game or XL

 

 

Second: spool tension.  Rig up with your preferred rig, and tighten your tension until your bait juuuuust barely falls.

 

Third: brakes.  Set them at 50% to start.

 

Fourth: thumb.  No matter how your reel is set, getting used to thumbing the spool takes practice.  There's only one way to do it: practice 

11 minutes ago, detroit1 said:

A $40 reel will make it very hard to learn how to use a baitcaster. 

 

I hate to be a gear snob, but he's right.

 

 

[BrianMDTX]

27 minutes ago, detroit1 said:

A $40 reel will make it very hard to learn how to use a baitcaster. 

Maybe. 
 

So I’ll preface that by saying that I started fishing with a baitcaster (a Daiwa Millionaire 3H) at 16-17 years old back in the 70s. But I never used it much. My friend and I each bought baitcasters because “that’s what the pros use”. But I didn’t fish again with a baitcaster from maybe the mid-80s until 2020, when I bought my first modern baitcaster- a Black Max. Bought two of them within a month. Are they inexpensive? Yes. Did I find it hard to learn how to cast with a modern, low-profile baitcasting reel with a magnetic brake and spool tension? No. 
 

Do they cast as far as my Fuego or Tatula? Are they as smooth reeling? I’d say no, and no. But so far they’ve given me zero issues. I just respooled one of them with braid for the first time- 50 lb. Sufix 832 and a 12 lb. YZH leader. Used it with a frog and a jig-n-craw and didn’t have an issue with it at all from the first cast. 
 

Would one be better off starting with a higher-quality reel? Probably so. But I would not say that it’s “very hard” to learn with a less expensive reel. 

[suzuki2903]

30lb braid on 16 baitcaster setups and never a issue!  Don’t need 50lb unless a certain application calls for it… flipping, pitching, bigger swim baits etc . I initially tie  a knot then wrap with electrical tape then tightly spool the reel up. 
 

quality gear makes a big difference just as a  properly set up a baitcaster will and then practice practice practice! Birds nests will happen 

[ArtificialLureCaster]

I would like to thank everyone who offered a solution or an opinion under this thread that I started 2 weeks ago.  

 

Instead of replying back promptly, I wanted to wait until after trying some of the suggestions and implementing my own experiments.  Finding and using sporadic free time took two weeks but I finally completed my trials today. The result is a surprising but a happy story. I will share it because there may be other novice users of baitcasters who one day stumble upon this thread and may solve their problems too. 

 

Having said that I would like to emphasize that it is only my fifth day in the trials and tribulations of baitcasting reels. I am in no position to give advice or claim holding the truth. I am just telling my experience and what worked for me. 

 

Just to recap, I was trying to cast 3/8 oz lure over 40 yards consistently so that I can fish a local lake from the bank. I put a 30lb braided line on the spool and casted a practice plug repetitively on the grass over 40 yards. However, when I took the same set up to the lake with a swimbait, I was getting frequent backlashes when I try to go over 20-25 yards. I suspected that the wet braid was somehow the culprit.

 

First thing I tried was to change the spool to 15lb mono. I took the same practice plug to the park and I hated every minute of it. It is already known that mono line has memory problems, but I did not know it was this bad on a baitcaster. That line does not want to stay on that reel. Yes, when I cranked the tensioner and the brakes up, I could easily cast 20-25 yards, but reaching to the 40 yards was a problem for me. Resolving minor overruns was as annoying as the backlashes. When using braid, something I can resolve by releasing a foot or two of the line became yards of line release in mono. The spool does not tidy up easily on mono. When there is slack line, I grab the rod in front of the reel and use my thumb and index finger to feed a somewhat tight line to the guide so that the spool is packed tight enough. Yet, when I try to brake with my thumb to slow an overarching cast I always find the spool is couple of turns loose at the end. That rarely happened with the braid, And, when it happened I could resolve it by just pulling a feet of line. So, my experience with mono was so bad that I did not take it to the lake. I am glad that I was lucky enough not to start using a baitcaster reel with a mono line. Otherwise, I would have given up the first day. Life is too short to train for a hobby if one is not enjoying the process.

 

Then, an idea occurred to me. I know the material of the braided line (ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene) is hydrophobic.  If I use a same diameter but 8-strand braided line instead of 4-strand, I can reduce the surface area and make the line even more hydrophobic. Also, I do not know how tightly the 4-strands weaved together, but when I hold my 30lb 4-strand braid I can feel the roughness. That is another indication that surface may have a lot of micro-pools/crevices that can hold water. So, I decided to get a 30lb, 8-strand line.

 

On the 4th day of trials, I went to the park with the same practice plug but a 8-strand 30lb line. It was beautiful again. I was consistently casting above 40 yards. (My line was unicolor so I was counting my strides.) I stayed around 90 minutes at the park, maybe casted 40 times. I had a single backlash and it was an obvious aiming error.

 

So, on day 5, today, I went to the same lake again, put the same lure on and started casting. It was enjoyable. I could not measure the distance, but I am guessing high 30s if not 40. After the first hour I switched to 1/2oz. Johnson minnow spoon. It was flying. I was so happy. I stayed 4 hours at the lake. In the first 3 hours, I probably got 10 backlashes, but they were nothing I could not resolve under a minute. Half of them were due to unrelaxed casting in the presence of branches.  And in between those backlashes, it was very enjoyable. This is something I can built on. 

 

About the braided line: not just my casting improvement, but also the sound the line makes during the casting attest to the fact that 8-strand holds less water. When I was casting with the 4-strand line on the water, it was making this annoying, almost screeching, sound during the cast. That sound is gone with the 8-strand. Also, when I thumb the spool with the 8-strand after a wet cast, it feels damped but nowhere as drenched as the 4-strand. 

 

In the last hour, close to noon, the wind started to pick up. I used that as an opportunity to practice with the wind. I first casted couple times directly towards it. Unsurprisingly, all backlashed. But with a lot of brake (6/10) and tensioner, I can cast direct to the 10-knot wind 15-20 yards. That was surprising. What is more educational, and fun was to cast perpendicular or nearly perpendicular (>70 degrees) to the wind. One can observe and experiment how sensitive the reel is to the speed of the spoon.  My thumb is not trained enough and that becomes more apparent during the wind. When I increase the cast arch more than 5 degrees, I cannot compensate it with my thumb, I needed to increase the brakes one notch (4/10). 

 

Anyway, it was a fun day, I wished I caught a trout (it is a trout lake) and posted a picture here to do a Hollywood ending but could not catch any. On three different casts they chased the lures all the way to bank but no bite. I guess the inflation affected the trout as well. They were just window shopping.

 

Thank you all. 

[Fishing_Rod]

Good Day ArtificialLureCaster, and et al.,

 

Congratulations on your efforts in learning the bait cast reel. I can empathize with you on so many common areas. I am mainly a recreational ultra lite angler. I am not all that invested in heavy equipment but I do want some level of capability. So keeping things at a low cost is helpful and a restriction / constraint I’m willing to live with.

 

I purchased a low cost, sub $50 USD, reel from our local large retailer. It seemed of reasonable quality when compared to more expensive, within possible budget options. Basically it was good enough for my intended use and level of use.

 

So lessons learned to share with you and others in a similar situation. I understood that there would be a learning curve. That being said I did use low cost bulk monofilament line and started at 15 lb. I eventually after learning to smooth out my casts have moved down in size. I have gone as low as four pound mono but that was problematic, not for the backlash but the tendency to catch the lip of the spool. I currently use six or eight pound mono.

 

The other thing is lure weight. I have realized due to the inertial mass of the line and spool the combination of a soft plastic bait and 1/8 oz jig or weight is about the lowest reasonable, usable to me. I don’t have to be too cautious and diligent and still have some reasonable casting accuracy with usable distance. Heavier lure combinations are no issues as they are easier and more forgiving to user error.

 

I applaud and encourage you to continue your efforts. I found it was easier to set my magnetic brakes at 70% or greater as a starting point. I also adjust the spool tension knob at just tighter than when you detect lateral axle movement. It was easier to practice casting with the heavier magnetic setting as it would not go as far yet I could easily adjust down as confidence built. This for me was better than dealing with the repeated delays of clearing the reel. I get more quality casting practice to experience the reel’s handling qualities.

 

Also due to the inertial mass mentioned I found the release point needed to occur earlier in the casting arc than with using spinning reels. Yes, as others have mentioned you have to adjust the use profile for each type of reel. You still swing about the same arc you just have to adjust your starting point back adjusting the release point so the bait will land where you intend.

 

Lastly I found due to the bait cast retrieve ratios being generally much faster in bringing line than spinning reels. I had to relax my cranking pace along with frequent pauses to generate more lure interest resulting in higher catch rates. I was simply moving the bait too fast.

 

I wish you much angling enjoyment with hopes of gratifying fish catching! Cheers!