thinking about switching to braid

[bronzeback01]

I have been fishing w/ mono all my life , my reason is pretty much that i don't have a boat and do 99.9% of my bass fishing from shore and when i get snagged i'd hate to leave whatever many yards of line floating out there. What do you recomend for somthing w/low visability and is there anything that i should know before switching ie: does it really cut through guides , is it hard to to tie knots etc. thanks in advance for any help.

ps another reason for making the switch is that the area i fish is pretty much off rocks and if i have somthing w/any size to it it's to far of a reach to grab the fish by the lip so i have to  pull it up a few feet by the line and i've lost two huge fish in the past 2 weeks one because my line broke and the other because the hook itself snapped

[Marty]

I have been fishing w/ mono all my life , my reason is pretty much that i don't have a boat and do 99.9% of my bass fishing from shore and when i get snagged i'd hate to leave whatever many yards of line floating out there. What do you recomend for somthing w/low visability and is there anything that i should know before switching ie: does it really cut through guides , is it hard to to tie knots etc. thanks in advance for any help.

I use Power Pro, from shore and boats. It doesn't cut guides. The green is low visibility, at least to the angler, but I don't bother using a leader and it doesn't seem to have any negative effect that I can tell.

I only use Palomar knots and they're easy to tie.

Braid is incredibly abrasion-resistant to wood and vegetation and allegedly very poor in rocks, but I don't fish rocky water.

Be careful with braid, it can easily get tangled up in your lures, wrapped around the rod tip, and the like. The most common reason I cut and retie is tangles around lures and hooks that I can't untangle.

For me, the pluses greatly outweigh the minuses.

[roadwarrior]

Hmm...

Been there, done that...

With all the options available, braid ranks 101 out of 100 for me.

:

[Trick Worm]

I have been using braided for 1 day and WOW. But the again this is my first time with a bait-caster and that is an even bigger amazement to me.

[21farms]

i love braid but NOT AROUND ROCKS...the bad reputation braid has around rocks is well-deserved, believe you me.

as for tying knots, i find tying knots with braid easier than tying with mono and much easier than with flouro. some people seem to have a problem with their braid knots slipping but i've never once had that problem (i use a trilene knot 99% of the time, a palomar the remainder).

as for your stated reasons for wanting to switch, it just sounds like you need a higher test line or to switch to a better brand of mono. mono is not all created equal...it may be that you're simply using lousy stuff. what are you using now?

[Raul]

The catch is trying to determine if braid is better suited for what you want or for where you fish.

I 've been in this hobby for long enough to understand that up to this moment there 's no such thing as the "perfect" aboslutely all around line, what works great in one place doesn 't work that great in another, what one line has ( properties ) the other one lacks and all the way around. So take example and listen to what people with expirence has to say.

For example, Marty: Braid is incredibly abrasion-resistant to wood and vegetation

True, he says "allegedly very poor in rocks" , he ain 't 100% sure cuz: I don't fish rocky water, no experience so there 's a certain degree of uncertainty.

Now comes Franks and says: i love braid but NOT AROUND ROCKS...the bad reputation braid has around rocks is well-deserved, believe you me.

I fish with braid and like Marty said, it 's great for fishing wood and vegetation, I absolutely concur and like Frank said, you fish with that line around rocks and kiss it goodbye ( those guys who regularily fish tourneys at El Cuchillo found out pretty soon when they came down here to fish a tourney in Zimapan that braided isn 't exactly the greatest and it don 't matter that 's it 's 60 lbs test ).

So that means, that depending upon where and what I 'm fishing I may use different types of line, I 'm mainly a nylon monofilament user, most of my reels are spooled with nylon, I like the properties of nylon but I do know that it may not be "the best" for all applications.

[bronzeback01]

as for tying knots, i find tying knots with braid easier than tying with mono and much easier than with flouro. some people seem to have a problem with their braid knots slipping but i've never once had that

as for your stated reasons for wanting to switch, it just sounds like you need a higher test line or to switch to a better brand of mono. mono is not all created equal...it may be that you're simply using lousy stuff. what are you using now?

I was using suffix elite 8lb test , it's never given me a problem before. and the 2 fish i lost were no more than 5 or 6 lbs. tops.

[Certified Public Angler]

For shore fishing braid is a good option.  Especially if you have heavy cover like lillies, hydrilla, weeds, etc.  I once accidentally cast a rat-l-trap into a huge patch of lillies, the bait was like $5 and practically brand new.  So I cranked down my drag to max and ended up ripping 3 lilly pads out of the ground and getting my crank back.  Just had to replace the bent trebles and it was good as new.  I use 30lbs. PowerPro or Suffix.  You will have to deal with some windknots, but if you are losing fish or lures to the cover in the lake braid will help you.