Looking at Fishing Lines - What is The Top-Rated Fishing Line?

Looking at Fishing Lines 

From the time when anglers began to appreciate catching fish as a sport, and not only as a skill used to harvest food, the earliest fishing lines were reported to be made of horsehair and gut, later giving way to silk—the era was the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These silk lines were cast with a whippy pole or rod, the precursor to a fly rod. Later, silk bait-casting lines became popular. The leader on the horsehair or silk line was gut, a material which was less obvious to fish when underwater and therefore less of a threat to fish than the heavier silk casting line to which it was attached. 

The leader was the transitional piece of the connection intended to be as translucent as possible so the fish might be fooled into eating the fly or bait. This principle of using a line less visible or at least less noticeable to fish paved the way for the nearly invisible lines such as today's monofilament (a single strand of extruded nylon, hence the name monofilament) or fluorocarbon used as the terminal fishing connection. As noted fishing writer A J. McClane told readers in his classic book The Practical Fly Fisherman, "The purpose of a leader is to reduce the visible connection between line and fly. Obviously, the trout, a fish credited with keen eyesight, is going to be suspicious of his breakfast if something is leading it around by the nose." So, we heighten our deception by adding a section Of a line that disappears or blends in With the surroundings, or does both. 

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Still, an angler must first decide on a type of fishing line based on the application. It used to be a fishing line was dried after use, to protect it from wearing thin or rotting. In Tackle Tinkering, H. G. Tapply writes about allowing a fishing line to dry on a piece of newspaper—in fact, he recommends that method. (Although H. G. cautions "remember, when drying, to keep the line out of the sun and away from direct heat.") That book was published in the 1940s. I've been lucky in my career as an outdoors editor. and one shining friendship was getting to know Bill Tapply, the son Of H. G. Tapply (also known as Tap). I never told Bill this truth. that I learned to read from studying "Tap's Tips" in Field & Stream. Quite literally, I was probably three or four years old at the time—though it wouldn't have been the first time Bill had heard that, no doubt. Generations loved Tap and his outdoor tips. (Other readers loved Bill, for he was a talented mystery novelist, as well as a gifted outdoor storyteller.) H. G. takes us deep- er into history when writing about dressing bait-casting lines With beeswax, paraffin, or fly- line dressing. 
The same was true for fly lines of appreciating how we've simplified matters through the decades—at least When it comes to fly lines. Nowadays, we buy fly lines by their number rating—5- and 6-weights for trout, for example, and 8- to 12-weights and up for heavier fish in fresh and saltwater. The heavier lines help us Cast in windy conditions or when we need to make long-distance casts to wary fish on the alert for predators (including anglers, you might say). 
The numbers are based on the grain weight of the head Of the line, the forward-most thirty feet The constant between then and now when assembling your tackle connections is the need for dependable knots, such as two that McClane shares in his book that you'll also find in this book—the Blood Knot (for joining leader sections) and the Perfection Loop (for making loops in the ends Of leader sections if you want to use loop-to-loop connections). H. G. Tapply also lists knots in TackleTinkering ( 1 946), in a chapter titled "Knots: Hitches and Splices the Angler Should Know": He shares the Perfection LOOP and also the Barrel Knot (similar to the Blood Knot) and

refers to it as the Twist Knot; he also lists others that have gone out of fashion for fishing, such as the Water Knot, Bowline, Jam Knot, Double Jam, Tiller Hitch, Stevedore Knot, and Figure Eight Knot. Knots come and go. 

I'll spare you any tutorial on the way things used to be when it came to measuring line thickness with a micrometer to assemble lines and the leader; instead, let's look at how things are today. As I mentioned earlier, fly lines are now rated by number, lowest for light tackle (O- to 5-weight) to middleweights (5- to 9-weight) to heavier weights (from IO- to 12-weight or so),

and then some outliers such as 13- or 14-weights for big-game ocean species such as sailfish, marlin, tuna. sharks, and the like. 
My friend and my former editorial mentor at Outdoor Life. Vin Sparano, wrote in his book Complete Outdoor Encyclopedia (1998), "Fishing lines are made of a wide variety of natural and synthetic materials and as a result differ widely in their characteristics and the uses to which they can be put. No two types of lines, for example, have the same degree Of elasticity, abrasion resistance, water absorption, weight. and diameter." For spinning and bait-casting, the lines today differ based on the type of fishing and include monofilament to fluorocarbon but also braided lines, called super braids.

Let's first look at the traditional modern fishing material used as line, leader, and tippet—monofilament One of the contemporaries of A. J. McClane Was the fishing legend Joe Brooks, who wrote in his 1950 book Salt Water Fly Fishing, "Every time I tie on a leader I wonder what we did in the days before nylon appeared.".
One popular "super line" is Fireline by Berkley. The company tells lines are made from the highest grade Dyneema in the industry, a gel-spun polyethylene that is fifteen times stronger than steel by weight ... Berkley super lines Offer zero stretch at typical fishing loads, plus low memory and, thanks to incredibly One popular "super line" is Fireline by Berkley. The company tells lines are made from the highest grade Dyneema in the industry, a gel-spun polyethylene that is fifteen times stronger than steel by weight ... Berkley super lines Offer zero stretch at typical fishing loads, plus low memory and, thanks to incredibly high tensile strength, remarkably thin line diameters.

Fluoro is only used as leader material because iü expensive—more expensive than mono, for sure—and it holds memory when coiled, so it is most manageable in shorter pieces When coiling isn't an issue. 
The same as mono, it's extruded as a single piece. It actually has greater translucence than monofilament and is, therefore, less visible to fish underwater.