Line choice for jointed swimbaits?

[VTFan]

I just bought my first jointed swimbaits and having never fished them before am curious as to what line to fish them with...fluro or braid. I know fluro sinks and braid floats. The ones I bought are not high dollar ones and are advertised as 'slow sinkers'. I cast them a few times the other day on braided line just to see the action they have and they don't seem to be 'slow sinkers' to me. Thanks in advance.

[softwateronly]

Currently, all of my reels are spooled with braid, but I wouldn't fish any jointed swimbaits straight braid.  I do fish them braid to leader.  My recommendation is straight floro or if you want to use braid you should use a leader.  I use 20lb, 30lb fc, and 20lb mono.

 

scott

[Bluebasser86]

I use mono for jointed swimbaits, 15-20lb depending on the weight of the bait. 

[VTFan]

Ok, thanks again guys. Right now half my reels have 17-20 lb. fluro and the other half 40 lb. braid. The lakes and ponds have frozen over now so it'll be a while before I can get back out. I'll give the fluro a try next time. Again, thanks.

[VTFan]

Ok, as I said in my first post, I did not get high dollar baits and the ones I got were advertised as "Slow Sinkers".  I've now tried them on both straight fluro and straight braid and they sink like rocks and have very little action unless fished like jerk baits. I guess the old saying, "You get what you pay for", is true.

[Born 2 fish]

I don’t know the weight of your baits but I use 20lb big game on my bigger jointed Swimbaits for example a 6” bullgill or bullshad. 

[VTFan]

21 hours ago, Born 2 fish said:

I don’t know the weight of your baits but I use 20lb big game on my bigger jointed Swimbaits for example a 6” bullgill or bullshad. 

I can't remember the weights but they are 4" baits.

 

[Reel]

I've been using ArmaJoint swimbaits for the last year and the model I use really floats (listed as slow floater) I prefer floating models. They are 7 1/2 inch long and weight almost 2 oz. If I want them to sink slowly, I suspend a small weight on the front hook hanger.  I use 20lb fluoro on baitcasting equipment.

[WRB]

4” jointed swimbait you can use your crank bait outfit.

Tom

[thediscochef]

The definitions of "slow sink" really are all over the place - I have a stunna 112 that sinks super slow, it's perfect for working up the hill on ripraps. Thinking I would have a similar experience with the 6th sense 106x slow sink, I was dead wrong. It falls at least 3x faster and I honestly hate it. Yet, the 6th sense flow glide 130 I got falls just as slow as the stunna. All labeled "Slow sink". 

for line though I love the sufix tritanium plus but for controlling sink I believe a braid-to-mono or straight monofilament is better. The tritanium sinks a bit and causes problems with the slow sink baits. This can be advantageous sometimes with a walking bait, as it will pull the bait under the surface yet still retains the side-to-side walking action

[WRB]

Water temperatures affect “sink rate” a very subjective term.

Colder water is more dense and slows the sink rate whereas warmer water in less dense increasing sink rates.

Line diameter and coefficient of drag going through the water   and density of the line affects how fast or slow a lure sinks.

OP’s unidentified 4” jointed ”swimbait” doesn’t need line over  .012 D or 12 lb test FC imo.

Tom 

[Bankc]

With a 4" jointed swimbait, my preference is to use my crankbait rod and reel them in fast!  Not pauses or twitches.  Just straight up fast reeling. 

 

I had fished smaller jointed swimbaits for a while without much success, but then read an article somewhere where the person was saying the key to these small, jointed swimbaits was to fish them fast.  So I tried that and it worked!  And I've been doing it ever since.  

I use braid with no leader, but I use braid with no leader for most things.  I think you could get away with using whatever line you like with a small swimbait, unless you had a specific reason to choose one over the other, like if you were losing fish and needed the stretch of mono to keep them pinned or were fishing clear waters and needed the transparency of fluoro.