I can only imagine what it must be like to walk into a tackle shop to buy fishing line these days. There are a zillion different brands and types of line: superlines, monofilament, fluorocarbons. If I were to walk into a Wal-Mart or a Bass Pro Shops and look at that whole wall of line, I’d almost get confused, and I think I’m about as up-to-date as you can get. The average guy who walks in and sees 40 different brands and types of line can be confused. Easily.But there was a time when I was about as guilty as anyone. When I won the Bassmasters Classic in 1999, I used one line: Trilene Big Game. It was a good line; it was so strong, I almost never broke off a fish, but it had a lot of stretch, and now we know that stretch is sometimes bad.
About 90 percent of the time back then, I used either Big Game or Trilene XT. I can remember Guido Hibdon making fun of me. “I know what kind it is, but what size is it?” he’d ask me.
I was carrying Big Game in 10- to 25-pound test — which made life easier — but Guido and his son, Dion, were already carrying all different kinds of line.
Now, I have come to realize that there are times when you definitely need to use different kinds of line — times you need fluorocarbon or a superline, a braid. There are just so many advantages to using those lines in certain situations that it’s going to be hard for you to be competitive — if you fish tournaments — if you’re sticking with just monofilament.
One of the things I believe is that you should really pay attention to the line on your reels and take care of it, replace it regularly. Other than the hooks you’re using, your line is maybe the most important piece of tackle you’ve got. Think about it; you’re using a $300 rod-and-reel combo, sitting in a $50,000 boat, and you don’t want to replace a $5 spool of line. That doesn’t make a lot of sense. But I know that as far as loyalty is concerned, a lot of fishermen find a kind of line they like to use, and they stick with it.
I don’t want to make anybody’s wife any angrier about the fishing stuff you’re buying, but if you want to get the most out of your tackle, you need to fish different kinds of line, because they most definitely have advantages and disadvantages.
Here are some of the basic things I think about when I spool line onto a reel. What kind of lure am I going to be throwing? What kind of structure am I going to be fishing around? Am I going to be fishing on the bottom? Am I going to be throwing a crankbait or a jerkbait that I need to get as deep as I can?
I try to answer those questions, and when I do, matching up the line with the task at hand is easy.
Here’s why.
If I’m going to be fishing heavy vegetation, heavy cover, whether I’m trying to run a frog across the top or flip a Senko down in the cover, I’m going to be using a braided line, Stren Super Braid. If I’m casting, I’m going to be using Spiderwire Ultracast. They’re both braids, but they’re totally different lines. The Ultracast casts so much easier than the Stren Super Braid, but both of them are great lines when you’re fishing heavy cover and you don’t ever, ever want to take a chance on breaking off.
Now, if I’m casting a crankbait to offshore structure at Lake Murray, I’m going to be fishing monofilament, either Trilene Big Game or XT. When you’re fishing a crankbait, you want some stretch, and you get that with monofilament.
Flourocarbon line has less stretch, and it sinks, so you can get a bait deeper with it, and it’s more sensitive. If I’m fishing a jerkbait that will get down four or five feet, I can fish it on Trilene Flourocarbon and get that bait down a foot or two deeper. And you can find yourself in situations where a foot deeper is very, very important.
When I fished the BASS Elite Series tournament on Lake Murray in May, I was fishing these little points, and sometimes you wanted the bait shallow — and sometimes you didn’t. So I had multiple baits rigged on different lines: Trilene MAXX, which is a monofilament, and Trilene Flourocarbon. The bait on the fluorocarbon line would run 18 inches deeper than on the mono. So, depending on the point I was fishing, I would throw the bait on mono if I wanted it shallow, and fluorocarbon if I wanted it deeper.
As far as casting to points with a Buckeye mop jig, Texas-rigging a Senko or Carolina-rigging a lizard, 90 percent of the time, I’ll use fluorocarbon. I think it gives me better contact with my bait, it has low stretch for a good hookset, and it’s almost invisible. Those are all positive things to me.
By the same token, I had rods rigged at Murray with a Zara Spook and Pop-R, and I had those tied on monofilament. If you fish a topwater bait on a fluorocarbon line, the line will sink and pull the bait down, and you won’t be able to get that bait to “walk” correctly. So you want mono, which will float.
You might think it would be confusing to have a dozen rods on your casting deck, all with different kinds of line and different kinds of lures tied on. To some extent, it is, but I try to take a little bit of the guesswork out by labeling my rods, so I know what kind of line I’ve got spooled on. I’ll take a little piece of tape and put it on the cork between my reel and the first guide. I’ll take a marker and write something like “10-M” or “10-F” on the tape. That way, I can look at it and know I’ve got 10-pound mono or 10-pound fluorocarbon on that rod. I really don’t have to put tape on the rods with the braided lines, because I can tell the difference just by looking at them. But it makes things a lot easier to be able to tell with a single glance what kind of line you’re fishing and how heavy it is. It will save you time in the boat, and when you’re on fish, time is money.
Davy Hite is a 43-year-old native of Saluda who lives in Ninety Six. He has fished professionally since 1993. He was the BASS Angler of the Year in 1997 and 2002, and he won the 1999 Bassmasters Classic and the 1998 FLW Tour Champion-ship. He is sponsored by Triton boats, Evinrude outboards, All-Star rods, Pfleuger reels, Berkley Trilene, Yamamoto baits, Owner hooks and Solar Bat sunglasses.
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