As featured on Examiner.com’s Portland Fishing Examiner here is my review of coated braided lines. Short and sweet.
The first time I began to fascinate about different fishing lines was the early ninteties. I had a Berkley Silver Thread (who remembers Silver Thread?) knot testing machine that allowed to strength test any fishing knot I chose to as well as pure tensile breaking points.
With this machine I was able to determine certain characteristics of the most common and even the obscure monofilaments, copolymers, flourocarbons and eventually braids. It’s somewhat of a task to stay on point when it comes to educating anlgers on different fishing lines because there are so many different aspects and applications by which to judge, grade and assign to duty.
Eventually we all find our favorite lines. And arguing this fact with the most dedicated of anglers can be an uphill battle, no doubt. In turn, my goal with this review is to simply share my own experience with your for your own eventual judgement.
To stay on topic I will only briefly digress from the subject of ‘coated’ braided lines. That is to say I have a favorite line I use for float fishing that is braided but not coated. Berkley Fireline is my endorsement for the float angler looking to find that game changing line this coming season. It literally does everything a float angler would hope for: Casts, mends, floats, excellent knot strength (when doubled) and is totally effective for both sliding and fixed rig outfits.
Herein lies the problem for our selections of coated braided lines currently on the market today. Most commonly these lines will be either the P Line Hydro Float line or the Western Filament Dura Cast line. First glance takes on both lines were extrememly positive without question. Truly a brilliant idea to ‘coat’ a braided line allowing better mendability and floatation advantages over the traditional performance braids such as Spiderwire, Fireline, Fusion and others the like.
Both the Dura Cast and the Hydro Float are like mini fly lines wrapped onto a spinning reel. So cool right? Well, maybe. Only if you’re fishing fixed rigs. The problems occur once an angler decides to run a stop knot on their main lines. The bobber stop will wear through the coating with tremendous speed and force allowing an angler perhaps merely one morning of satisfying depth changes on his/her sliding rig before the line is weakened to less than a third of the original advertised breaking strength.
Again…if you’re running a fixed float rig…you are going to have much less trouble and might even scoff at my review due to your very own excellent experiences with the aforementioned line(s). This being said….I do in fact know what I’m talking about. My reviews come from extended use of a product before I ever write about it. Anglers who wish to accomplish deep stop settings can only do so with a monofilament bumper should they choose to run a coated line.
Once you exceed roughly 8 feet of water depth, however, your monofilment bumper section becomes fairly irrelevant for obvious reasons. Hence my earlier recommendation of running fixed only if you must run coated.
Christopher Heller is the founder of AllAroundAngler.com
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Good words. I am loving the 14# fireline that you turnned me onto. A bit pricey to fill the spool, but it performs so much better than your conventional braid or even mono.
Great review Chris and I share the same exact thoughts on the coated line. As an avid float fisherman myself, I too have tried lots of the lines out there. The coating does make the line float a bit better, but at the cost of castability and manageability. Your statement of Fly line for a spinning reel is a perfect description of coated lines. In my experience with it from trying friends reels who had it, you have to throw twice as hard to achieve half of the casting distance you can achieve with regular braided line. The float stop does have a tendency to dig into the coating and strip it off, rendering further depth adjustment impossible.
As a custom rod builder, If I were to build a Reel Tech Custom Float rod for the sole use of coated braided lines, I would finish the rod towards the tip section with larger guides to aid in line flow through the guides. This I believe would achieve greater casting distance
I agree with your thoughts on Berkley Fire Line, fantastic line indeed, and I have used it with much success. I also have had much success and enjoy using Power Pro.
Nice job Chris–GREAT information you provided to your viewers based on extensive on the water experience. You cant ask for anything more credible than that 🙂
Thanks a million, John! You made my day.