Thread: Fishing tackle

Hmmmmmmmm......fishing, my favourite way to waste an entire weekend.

I notice a few replies stating.... "tried braid, didn't like it, stick with mono". One word springs to mind when I here people make statements like this.... paradigms.

IMHO using mono is like being a Land Cruiser owner, you bought it, but every time you get blown away at the lights or passed by that disco towing a boat down the highway, you know your Cruiser is no where near as talented as the Rover. All it took for me to be a totally converted user of braid lines, was for me to use it just once and all the advantages of such line became evident (exactly the same way I became a totally converted user of Land Rover).

There are a few things that can help catch fish, such as keeping in direct contact with your bait/lure, being able to feel the "bite", and how long it takes for you to remove the slack in the line on the strike to set the hook in the fish. Braid is surperior in all these areas. It's almost non-existent stretch, gives you the ability to actually feel your live prawn kicking on the hook and be able to tell how nervous the prawn is. Braid's thinner diameter for a given breaking strength, means longer casts, and less "bow" in the line, which in turn keeps you in direct contact with your bait/lure, and takes less time for you to remove the slack in the line on the strike to set the hook and then keep in more direct contact with the hooked fish.

There are a lot of other positive reasons to use braid, but, and there is always a "BUT", there are negatives aswell. Like, the no stretch, can actually pull hooks because of the lack of ability to absorb shock from head shaking of the fish. This can be a big problem when chasing meter plus barra. One solution is Platypus "Bionic Braid", as it as a built in stretch of 5% and the use of quality leader lines (can anyone say "Jinkai").

Buy quality braid, and you will NOT be disappointed. Just remember, until you use braid, your using the Toymota of fishin' lines.

Oh yeah, almost forgot, as I am almost exclusively fish with a "catch and release" mentality, I prefer hooks that are chemically sharpened, but will rust in a hurry, for when I have to release a fish with the hook still in it. I will only try to remove the hook from a deep hooked fish, if it can be done without injuring the fish further. Having said that, it wouldn't be the first time I have had a flathead hooked deep through her throat with a 5/0 Tru-Turn, only to have her spit the hook while looking for the scissors to cut the line.

Anyways, thats my rant.

Originally Posted by isuzurover

Any more detail on your gear John? I have done a reasonable amount of freshwater fly fishing, and still have an 8/9wt setup waiting for me for when I am back in OZ.

Ben,
I use 9' Reddington CPS 8 wt rods. These are new design after Sage bought Reddington - some (including Peter Morse) say this rod is as good or better than Sage 8 wt (but half the price).

The lines I use are Scientific Angler "striped bass" taper, fast sink "dark gray" and slow sink "surf" (tropi-core in warm climes). 30 lb "fins" braid backing, 40 lb shock tippet.

My 4.35m Quintrex Hornet is set-up for fly fishing. I plan to modify the trailer for offroad, with better support for the boat, 16" wheels, rangie radius arms (as trailing arms) panhard and shocks with air bag suspension (to lower for launching).