Custom Search

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Tying The Right Knot With The Right Line

Last year I decided to try out the new popular rave in fishing fluorocarbon line. I spooled up nearly all my reels with the most expensive fluorocarbon money could buy, with the exception of my top water reels. I read great results from the pros that use fluorocarbon and they seem to love the line. More... It’s most commonly known for its ability to help increase the amount of bites you receive because the line is invisible to the fish. It also sinks faster, is more sensitive, and has less stretch than monofilament so you get a better hook set. This line compares closely to braid, but is looked at to be a much better line due to the invisibility aspect and fast sinking for deep diving lures. So, I thought I would give it a shot last year. However, when I started fishing the line I did not research which knot was best to tie or use, and I paid dearly for loosing good quality fish due to my line breaking. I was using the Palomar Knot and it was not working with this line or at least not for me. There may be other reasons my line broke, such as not getting the line wet enough upon tying or brushing up against some rocks, or who knows what else may have happened. I do know one thing for sure, and that is my line broke a lot last year and this was the only change I made. I do have another problem that could have caused the line to break and that’s a hard hook set, but I have always been known for breaking a jaw and I really don’t want to stop any time soon, so I must find something else that works for me. So, even though I’m still not confident in the strength of fluorocarbon line I have researched more and it appears that the Berkley Braid Knot, Trilene Knot, Uni-Knot, and even the Palomar Knot I was using are all preferred when fishing fluorocarbon line. After doing all this research I come to the conclusion that I need to work on making perfect knots and focus on tying my knots much better than before. I will begin to work on my knot tying this year and hopefully it will lead to landing those lunkers I lost last year, which caused my team from placing or winning a tournament. If you are just beginning to test fluorocarbon line, then I recommend wetting your line, making a perfect knot from the knots listed above and testing its strength before casting into the big gulp. If you follow these simple rules I did not last year, then you will get those extra keepers into the livewell.

No comments: