Thread: mono vs. braid?

Im usually a freshwater fishing guy, but in the last few years ive come to love saltwater fishing! !! But just curios as to what the opinion of saltwater guys on mono vs. Braid

This forum heavily favors pier fishing, so I'd guess the majority favors mono, partly because it won't cut the line of the guy standing next to you as easily. Of course, on any fishing forum, you will find people that are set in their ways that will come up with thousands of ridiculous reasons that braid is the devil. I've heard them all.

You'll hear:

- Braid doesn't stretch, so hooksets rip out the fish's jaw (even though most use circle hooks nowadays, almost needing no hookset).
- Braid suffers terribly from wind knots (even though I've only ever had bad wind knots with heavy mono)
- Braid's flat profile will cause drag in the water (I've never had much problem with that using pyramids or sputniks)
- Braid will be abraded by rocks and hard surfaces (which is totally weird, given that I fish it extensively around bridge pilings and rip rap, because of the durability in "horsing" fish back out).
- Braid will cut your finger when casting (aww, poor thing.)


If those are legitimate problems (which I obviously take with a grain of salt), I say that they are overshadowed by:

- More strength than comparable diameter mono.
- Results in higher line capacity due to smaller comparable diameter.
- Largely resistant to memory issues.
- Extremely smooth casting (in the case of PP Super 8 Slick)


Bottom line (no pun intended), fish what makes you happy, assuming that it doesn't effect the guy next to you. Fishing for me is largely about being away from crowds. I intentionally avoid the pier, so I have no logical reason to not fish braid.

*Disclaimer: I do use flouro and mono leaders.

I use braid in bottom fishing situations that involve either not giving the fish an inch (like 15 lb snapper in 30 foot water) or deep water (feeling a bb nibble 250 feet down). I'll also use it for backing. Otherwise, I would much rather use mono for a few reason.

One, I find mono easier to tie. Spout anecdotal evidence about good braid knots all day long, but bottom line is when measured scientifically most simple braid knots involve huge strength losses. I also like to be able to pull on my line without wearing gloves.

I do prefer line that stretches except in the two situations I previously mentioned. Imagine you are free spooling a king, then you engage the reel. The stretch of the line plus the bend of the rod eases the transition from freespool to drag. With braid, I find it jarring.

And the tangles! Not referring to wind knots so much as the mess that arises when a bonito eats your bottom bait on the way down and snags another nearby line or 2 in the process... before you know it, a nasty super-tight knot has formed and cutting it off can be expensive.

So in conclusion I prefer mono except in the specific situations where super strong inelastic line is advantageous.

What Pierless said.

Originally Posted by Pierless

I use braid in bottom fishing situations that involve either not giving the fish an inch (like 15 lb snapper in 30 foot water) or deep water (feeling a bb nibble 250 feet down). I'll also use it for backing. Otherwise, I would much rather use mono for a few reason.

One, I find mono easier to tie. Spout anecdotal evidence about good braid knots all day long, but bottom line is when measured scientifically most simple braid knots involve huge strength losses. I also like to be able to pull on my line without wearing gloves.

I do prefer line that stretches except in the two situations I previously mentioned. Imagine you are free spooling a king, then you engage the reel. The stretch of the line plus the bend of the rod eases the transition from freespool to drag. With braid, I find it jarring.

And the tangles! Not referring to wind knots so much as the mess that arises when a bonito eats your bottom bait on the way down and snags another nearby line or 2 in the process... before you know it, a nasty super-tight knot has formed and cutting it off can be expensive.

So in conclusion I prefer mono except in the specific situations where super strong inelastic line is advantageous.

To not come off as argumentative, wanting only to enhance my knowledge of said subject matter, I will give you credit on the topic of tangles. That's one place where I'll definitely give the nod to mono. When I get a mess in my braid, nine times out of ten, I'm just going to cut it out/off, without even attempting to untangle it. It's usually a blessing in disguise, as I am a notorious "overfiller" of reels.

In regards to knot strength, I searched around and was unable to find any quantifiable metrics. I guess I can agree with you, if what you are saying is that using a knot that isn't optimized for braid leads to poor knot performance with braid.

If anyone can post any evidence that braid has lower knot strength when tied properly, I would love to see it, in the interest of expanding my knowledge on the subject.

In my situation, I'm frequently tying on flouro leaders, so my issue with knot strength is going to be there, where testing has shown that flouro knots can yield holding strength as low as only 60% of the line's rated strength. I will provide the following source to ensure that I'm not regurgitating anecdotal info.

Fluorocarbon Line Tests Abrasion Tensile Knot Strength

Once again, I don't mean to come off as contradictory (maybe that should be my internal signal that I'm being an ahole again), but only wish to advance the conversation.

Originally Posted by CarlF

What Pierless said.

Yeah, me too. Love braid for bubble rigs, mono for drifting live bait. Braid for backing for anything.

Never cared for braid in the past,except for bottom bumping......but I bought 2 reels that had braid (the newer braid) with top shot of mono and it worked great.....when the braid started coming off the reel the lure/jig seemed to take off, and way more distance was had.....will keep that set up for sure on those reels

Hey, not coming off as argumentative or contradictory at all! I consider Paulus Just fishing to be a great resource for knot strength and line strength in general.

You'll see that most braid is way stronger than its advertised breaking strength, and that is precisely because the knot strength is so poor. For example, take braid that breaks at 120, sell it as 80, and have it break in a doubled uni-knot or improved clinch knot at 70 lbs... thats 60% knot performance compared to absolute strength but if you are thinking of it as 80 lb line, then you have a great knot at 88% strength! You get the idea. The same thing is done with mono but to a much lesser extent.

You are right about fluoro knot strength being poor in a lot of cases too.

I usually end up putting a bimini twist in my braid and either looping that a few times through a swivel or going direct to mono/fluoro via a yucatan/albright/fg/whatever I'm convinced is good at the time.

Originally Posted by Pierless

Hey, not coming off as argumentative or contradictory at all! I consider Paulus Just fishing to be a great resource for knot strength and line strength in general.

You'll see that most braid is way stronger than its advertised breaking strength, and that is precisely because the knot strength is so poor. For example, take braid that breaks at 120, sell it as 80, and have it break in a doubled uni-knot or improved clinch knot at 70 lbs... thats 60% knot performance compared to absolute strength but if you are thinking of it as 80 lb line, then you have a great knot at 88% strength! You get the idea. The same thing is done with mono but to a much lesser extent.

You are right about fluoro knot strength being poor in a lot of cases too.

I usually end up putting a bimini twist in my braid and either looping that a few times through a swivel or going direct to mono/fluoro via a yucatan/albright/fg/whatever I'm convinced is good at the time.

Thanks for understanding. Some might ask why I would push what could be considered such a "dead horse" in regards to the subject matter. It's just that I've never really seen it hammered out well in this context (Southern surf and pier).

I do read up a great deal on stripersonline and pierandsurf, but much of that is out of context for our situations.

That's a very informative link.

I've switched to braid on a couple of my outfits for bubble rigs and casting lures. With the shark situation, playing fish on light line is no longer possible. I still say that braid on the pier in the hands of someone not used to fishing for powerful fish around lots of people in a strong wind is at best a disaster waiting to happen; and at worst can be dangerous. At king speed, braid cuts mono and skin like butter. Spend some time learning the ropes. You will still mess up from time to time, like i do, but will learn to avoid some of the worst mistakes. During that time, mono is a good thing.