Braid and a rod’s power

[Rodney Smith]

I know it isn’t perfect science, but in general how much power does braid add to a setup? A half power? Full power? The difference on my 873CRR with braid to leader or 15 lb fluorocarbon seems pretty significant in terms of hook setting power.

[Derek1]

I don’t know the exact science either. I throw ten pound braid on a 5 foot ultra lite rod and stick 1/0 light wire round bend worm hooks right through the roof and sides of their mouth. Then hold on for some drag ripping fun. It’s open water so you can still get them right in, but what a exhilarating 30 seconds. 

[Delaware Valley Tackle]

Braid doesn’t do anything to the rods power. A rod can cast a range of weights effectively and has a limited deadlift capacity. Line choice doesn’t change either. Outside of heavy cover fishing , the purpose of braid is improved sensitivity and line management/handling. 

[Rodney Smith]

It was probably a poorly worded question. The rod’s power won’t change, but the overall effect does.  The zero stretch makes the rod fish much stronger in my experience.

[dodgeguy]

1 hour ago, Delaware Valley Tackle said:

Braid doesn’t do anything to the rods power. A rod can cast a range of weights effectively and has a limited deadlift capacity. Line choice doesn’t change either. Outside of heavy cover fishing , the purpose of braid is improved sensitivity and line management/handling. 

Totally agree. What it does do is on a long cast it eliminated stretch on a hookset. At a distance of 100 feet mono or flouro can stretch up to approximately 10 percent easily. That means at that distance your entire hookset may get used up. This will not happen with braid.

[islandbass]

5 hours ago, Rodney Smith said:

It was probably a poorly worded question. The rod’s power won’t change, but the overall effect does.  The zero stretch makes the rod fish much stronger in my experience.

I think I guess what you’re trying to convey, but Delaware is spot on here. The rod’s power is independent of the line strength. 
 

I will respectfully disagree with you about zero stretch making the rod fish “stronger.” Just my opinion, but does not make sense or at the very least, cannot be true. 
 

Will braid (when taut) transmit feedback to angler better than mono? Will the near zero stretch make it easier to set the hook from a greater distance and make long casts because of its thin diameter?  I would say yes to all of three. But fish “stronger?” I would say no and here is why I think not. 
 

With all things being equal, let’s assume that 10# braid will break when just over 10lbs of force is applied to the line. It should follow then that 10# mono and fc will also break if the same amount of force is applied to them too. Since all 3 lines should break at that point, then not one of them can be stronger than the other two. 
 

What weighs more — A pound of nails or a pound of feathers? ??? 
 

Just my thoughts, but a very interesting question to ponder over the winter ??
 

 

[Rodney Smith]

Braid has a definite effect on hook setting power. I have fished braid for years. I tried 15 Tatsu on the same  873CRR with a 1/2 jig. Standard setup. I got poorer hook sets and lost more fish in one day than I would in a year. I think a lot of folks would just step up to a 894c with that setup the stiffer, heavier powered rod would compensate for the line stretch. This is what I mean by braid causing a rod to fish stronger than it’s rating.

[The Bassman]

I get what you're saying. I've been using braid for years and the few times I use mono I feel like I'm fishing with a bungee cord. And that's with lower stretch Sufix Advance. 

[rangerjockey]

I don't think your never going see anywhere near 10 feet of stretch in actual fishing. 

Maybe if you had 100 ft of line tied to a fixed object instead of a fishes mouth and pulled on it with something with no bend instead of a fishing rod you'd see some. 

 I don't think Tatsu stretches much at all , Maybe you just had a bad day with it.

I can tell you that I fish Football Jigs and spoons 40 plus feet deep here. If one gets hung up and I get over the top of it with the boat and try to pull it loose there's no way I can stretch it 4ft. That's with 12lb. Shooter

[Lead Head]

Hmm... I see what you're getting at. How about.. 

 

Braid doesn't make a rod fish any stronger, but it gives you the hook setting power of a rod 1 size (or more) stronger. 

[MickD]

2 hours ago, islandbass said:

With all things being equal, let’s assume that 10# braid will break when just over 10lbs of force

Many braids test much higher than their advertised pound test, but it has been argued that the lack of stretch contributes to a lower resistance to shock loading.  It is not as simple as it seems it should be.  Hitena claims its lines are very accurately specified for pound test, and I think they are.

[Deleted account]

10 hours ago, Rodney Smith said:

It was probably a poorly worded question. The rod’s power won’t change, but the overall effect does.  The zero stretch makes the rod fish much stronger in my experience.

The problem with the way you worded the question is that it's not just the power that seems to be affected, it's also the action, and recoil speed, so while yes, less rod is required for braid v mono (all else being equal) for a given presentation, and power may seem the most obvious, it's only part of the equation, indeed, given enough angler skill and experience, you could keep the same rod and fish it differently (in theory, LMB guys can't help themselves). It's a system, so you add or subtract stretch, and related shock absorption somewhere along the chain. 

[Deleted account]

4 hours ago, Rodney Smith said:

Braid has a definite effect on hook setting power. I have fished braid for years. I tried 15 Tatsu on the same  873CRR with a 1/2 jig. Standard setup. I got poorer hook sets and lost more fish in one day than I would in a year. I think a lot of folks would just step up to a 894c with that setup the stiffer, heavier powered rod would compensate for the line stretch. This is what I mean by braid causing a rod to fish stronger than it’s rating.

Yes, but hook setting is only one thing of 5 or 6 things a rod does while fishing. So if one wants to keep the same hookset motion used with mono (not sure why they'd want to) , then yes a rod one power down or so would do the trick, but when you start fighting the fish (pretend with me that LMB actually fight) then one action slower will be nice to cover up fish fighting technique flaws.

[Bankc]

It depends on how much line you have out when you try to set the hook.  It's a math equation with a lot of variables.  

[The Maestro]

I think what braid does is allow you to feel the rod's full power in the truest sense. Meaning that once you eliminate line stretch all of the force you apply will be going into bending the rod or moving the fish.

 

I think a better question would be how much power are you losing with lines that stretch if that makes sense.

[Kev-mo]

13 hours ago, Rodney Smith said:

Braid has a definite effect on hook setting power. I have fished braid for years. I tried 15 Tatsu on the same  873CRR with a 1/2 jig. Standard setup. I got poorer hook sets and lost more fish in one day than I would in a year. I think a lot of folks would just step up to a 894c with that setup the stiffer, heavier powered rod would compensate for the line stretch. This is what I mean by braid causing a rod to fish stronger than it’s rating.

I get it. I tried going back to mono several years ago after fishing braid exclusively for years. I could not catch a fish to save my life... went quickly back to braid and all was right in the world again lol.

 

Since then I've tried Sunline Defier Armilo (the red one) and I seem to be able to catch fish with that line. Altho it is supposed to be less stretchy so....

[RDB]

On 6/21/2022 at 8:09 PM, Rodney Smith said:

was probably a poorly worded question. The rod’s power won’t change, but the overall effect does.  The zero stretch makes the rod fish much stronger in my experience.

I understood what you were asking from your original post.  Just remember, you need to be a wordsmith on this site or we will take up the first page scolding you ?.

 

Edit:  I’m ready to be flamed with things like “words matter”…bring it on.

[Boomstick]

I would argue that braid has zero effect on the rods power, but more so on the action if you want to get into the nitty gritty of it. In other words, unless you are using some line like "Super Stretch Mono MAX" for line, the effect of stretch generally should not be sufficient enough to transition from the tip to the backbone of the rod. So for example, a fast rod with braid is like an extra fast with mono or fluoro.

 

It is possible if comparing two fast action rods a different power that you might be able to get hooksets on the lighter rod with braid as well, but the point is that it's more in the tip than the backbone. @Rodney Smith provided a great example - I wouldn't think about throwing a 1/2oz jig on a 873C with fluoro/mono but he had success with it on braid.

[Rodney Smith]

Maybe WRB can weigh in…

[Bird]

On 6/21/2022 at 9:09 PM, Rodney Smith said:

It was probably a poorly worded question. The rod’s power won’t change, but the overall effect does.  The zero stretch makes the rod fish much stronger in my experience.

Agree 

[Bird]

I need to simplify this in my mind so that I can offer simple imput.

 

If my hands move 3 feet to my right on a sweeping hook set using a med action rod, wouldn't straight braid promote a faster hook set by forcing energy down the tip into the backbone of the rod ?

 

Using line that stretches, the line does exactly that on a hook set, stretches.

So now on the same sweeping hook set, the rod is spending more time in the tip, it's weakest part.

To offset this you'd need a faster, longer sweeping hook set or a stiffer rod. Not ?

 

 

[Tennessee Boy]

From St Croix’s Rodgeeks website:

 

“Bass 4 Series - The RODgeeks Bass series is a collection of technique specific carbon fiber blanks that have been specially designed to meet the demands of hard core tournament bass fishermen. The actions are slightly slower than our other series in order to accommodate braided line, and a special reinforcing material is added that increases durability.”

 

So they think the rod’s action should be “slightly” slower to accommodate braid.  When I’ve measured the stretch in line,  I found that both mono and floro stretch about 6% when loaded with 1/4 the line test.  So 40 feet of #12 line will stretch 2.4 feet under 3 lbs of load.  That’s where I would normally set my drag.  The amount of bow in the line is probably more consequential in preventing a good hook set than stretch.
 

To me it all comes down to being familiar with the equipment you’re using so you will know how hard to set the hook.

[Boomstick]

10 minutes ago, Tennessee Boy said:

To me it all comes down to being familiar with the equipment you’re using so you will know how hard to set the hook.

If there is any takeaway from this thread, this is it right here. A lot of the time, the same rod works for braid and other times you can get away with using one and not the other. One case where adjustment is with treble hooks.

 

I was on another thread, and someone else said their favorite rod for jerkbaits and topwaters was the same rod I use but they used braid. I was initially surprised by this as it's a 6'8" M/XF (that does not run on the heavy side) but then I thought about it and it kind of makes sense. There isn't a whole lot of bend in the tip, but it bends the entire way through.

 

 

[Team9nine]

On 6/22/2022 at 11:07 PM, RDB said:

I understood what you were asking from your original post.  Just remember, you need to be a wordsmith on this site or we will take up the first page scolding you ?.

 

Edit:  I’m ready to be flamed with things like “words matter”…bring it on.

Sometimes it can be highly entertaining to just hang out and read a 60 post, 3 page thread of disagreements based largely on how everyone’s definition of things varies, especially if you don’t really have a vested interest in the subject. Sometimes it’s just more fun to watch from the sideline ? 

 

This thread still has the potential to get there  

[Boomstick]

1 hour ago, Team9nine said:

Sometimes it can be highly entertaining to just hang out and read a 60 post, 3 page thread of disagreements based largely on how everyone’s definition of things varies

It's just a theory - a rod theory.