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Fluorocarbon Line Questions

Gil, one of the greatest attributes of the fluorocarbon line is it's toughness. This line does not get nicked up anywhere near the way that monofilament does. Hence, you are not retying much at all.

With mono, I used to retie ALL the time. I was nuts about it. I would retie up 50 times a day during a tournament. In doing so, yes, a lot of the line is left to pile up in the bottom of the boat or floating in the lake if it gets blown overboard. This also required refilling the spool constantly after a few days of cutting off and retying line.

Now with the Sugoi fluorocarbon, amazingly, I can flip a jig all day in the California Delta, catch 20 fish, and not have to retie once! At first, I was shocked by these results. I fished for three days, up at Clear Lake in a 2 day Pro-Event and then a 3rd day team event, I was using the 16# fluorocarbon and tossing Senkos, catching fish up to 9.72 pounds. I never once had to retie my Senko rig! Let me tell you, Gil, this fluorocarbon stuff is a lot tougher than most people realize. Now, for my fishing style, I have only used fluorocarbon that tests in 12, 14, 16 and 20 lb. test strengths. I can't speak for the lighter lines.

You do not need to change the fluorocarbon. I have 11 rods that this line was spooled on back in December. It's still on there today - six months later. Three rods, I spooled the Sugoi on when I first got it for sampling, back in October, 1999 during the Bassmasters at Oroville. It lasts a long time! We'll see how it holds up to the heat of our western summer days; yesterday was 105 and it's 114 degrees today! Our summer is here, and this will be a good test to see how fluorocarbon stands up to the heat.

Also, fluorocarbon is amazing to cast with due to its unique properties. It just flies off the spool of your reel. You will experience some over-runs at first, but the savvy and experienced caster can adjust his braking system to avoid this from happening. I'm talking about baitcasting gear here, not spinning gear. I have not had any problems with kinks being a weak spot in the fluorocarbon. Since I started using the Sugoi I have only broken off ONCE, and I needed the trolling motor to help pull. I have heard from my fellow team writer, Dean Sault, that Dean has experienced this kinking problem a time or two from picking out a bad over-run on his spool, and then broken off on hooksets at that weak spot.

Gil, I don't pretend to know for absolute sure what the environmental impact is with this line. Yes, it does seem to be as you described, "indestructible", but I think that's a good point for this line, as it controls the amount of waste being tossed while on the water. What happens when it enters our recycling systems, I don't know. But much less of it will be broken off or discarded versus the amount of discard we are seeing with monofilament today.

Bottom line, I like it!

Hi Gil,

I'd like to respond to your questions about fluorocarbon line. I fish all of the Pro-Ams in Northern California's West Coast Bass circuit as well as several team circuits. I fish 8 to 12 days each month and I've been using fluorocarbon heavily in tournaments and while prefishing for the past 6 months.

First, the easy answers. Yes, fluorocarbon is extremely tough line that resists abrasion and does not suffer the UV-related degradation from sunlight that can damage traditional mono during summer usage. As far as environmental risks, ALL fishing line should be disposed of in an environmentally safe manner.

Remember, it is not the fishing line that is unsafe, it is the careless or unthinking nature of certain anglers. When I remove old line at home or on the boat (all lines - braid, mono and fluorocarbon), I take a little extra time to snip the wad of line into a harmless pile of short strands before disposing of it in the trash can - rather than environmentally dangerous long strands.

Now for the harder question! How frequently should fluorocarbon be changed during heavy tournament activity? The simple answer is, "As needed." My style of fishing varies from fishery to fishery. In the shallow fisheries like the Delta or at Clear Lake, I flip and pitch a lot. This is short line fishing that causes almost no backlashes. But I am usually working tight in abrasive structure and cover which is tough on any line. (Thank God for fluorocarbon!) With my old mono, I would retie almost every hour due to burrs in the line. Now, I find that I retie at most two or three times a day consuming no more than 8 to 10 feet of "worn" line each time. Under these conditions, I can easily fish two or three tournaments and related prefishing before respooling. Even though fluorocarbon costs more per foot, what I realized quickly is that it actually costs less overall than when I was respooling every day or two with premium mono!

When I'm using fluorocarbon for cranking, the long casts sometimes end up in massive bird's nests just as they do with mono. I've discovered the only thing that seems to cut fluorocarbon easily is itself! Line kinks, caused when a loose loop of fluorocarbon violently stops your cast, are definitely potential weak spots and should be removed. When this happens, you could be removing a considerable amount of line to get to the kink. Fortunately, fluorocarbon casts very well and this does not happen often. On average, I respool my cranking rods about once every other tournament and it is usually the night before the actual competition. Now, the old line doesn't go to waste either! I use the "old" line for prefishing. Of course, I used to respool religiously for EVERY tournament before and sometimes daily during big events with mono, so again, I am realizing a big savings from the fluorocarbon line.

I have only found one downside to fluorocarbon line. That is in using topwater lures. Fluorocarbon is a "sinking" line. When you are working a Spook or a popper on a steady retrieve, there is no problem. But if you decide to kill the bait for a few seconds to a minute, the line will sink fairly fast and pull your bait under when you resume the retrieve. You can counter this problem by holding your rod tip high, but then, you don't have good hook setting power when you get a strike. I am continuing to test fluorocarbon in this application to see if I can adjust to it, but as of now, I still prefer the floating nature of mono for topwater baits. Certain other topwater applications (like buzzbaits and weedless plastic grass frogs) work great with fluorocarbon. For instance, I fished a Pro-Am a few weeks ago and I managed to put a limit in the livewell in the first 8 casts of the day on a weedless plastic frog! I believe the exceptional low stretch characteristics of the fluorocarbon helped me get solid hooksets on those frog fish in the grass mats, and it allowed me to horse them out of the thick weeds before they knew what hit them. Wish every tournament started this great!

Hope this helps answer some of your questions. Good luck, Gil!

Pat Xiques, Mahopac, NY

Hi, Gil, and thanks for your question. I can't offer you much insight as for how fluorocarbon line breaks down in the environment after it is broken off or disposed of, but I do share your concerns about our environment. I can tell you about how this new line has radically changed my fishing!

Fluorocarbon has allowed me to enjoy all of the benefits of a braided line (abrasion resistance, strength, low stretch), with a mono-like product. Unlike braid, you can tie all the knots in fluorocarbon that you have been tying for years with mono. You do, however, need to be very careful with kinks in fluorocarbon. Like wire line (used for trolling), if you kink fluorocarbon badly, you will weaken it and it will break at the kink under pressure.

Fluorocarbon has very definite and specific applications in my opinion. It's great for flipping and pitching. It will give you sensitivity that you cannot believe. The hook setting power generated from this new line will shock you. It is similar to braid in that sense as well. I wouldn't use it for reaction baits like spinnerbaits or crankbaits. I think that you need some of the stretch inherent in mono for those applications.

As for how often you need to change it, the honest answer is that you really don't need to change it. Fluorocarbon just doesn't wear as much as mono. UV in sunlight doesn't break fluoro down, and water doesn't permeate the line (water permeates and softens mono). I have had the same fluorocarbon line on two of my reels for almost a year now. What I do is reverse it every month. Temporarily reel the line onto a spare reel, then re-wind the line back onto the original reel. This gives me "fresh" unused line from the back of the spool. It seems to work fine for me. I am about to change it now, because I have broken it a few times now (mostly due to kinks), but all in all, the line is as good as the day I put it on.

By the way, I do spray my fluorocarbon with Reel Magic on every trip. The slick dressing of Reel Magic helps keep the kinks and loops out while casting, plus the line flows through the guides more easily.

I hope this helps. Tight Lines...err...tight fluorocarbon, Gil!

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