Say the word fluorocarbon three times. Say it fast. Now say it one more time the next time you need fresh fishing line, the same way a significant number of anglers, especially serious anglers, say it to the fishing department retailers when it’s time to reload a bait-casting or spinning reel.
Indeed, fluorocarbon fishing line has been gaining committed followers for quite a while now and the percentage of believers continues to grow.
Fishing line
Let’s turn back the clock to the late 1940s when fishing line was fishing line, period. You could select from one or two basic lines, mostly made with a few strands of black string braided and that’s about it.
Most automated fishing gear at the time was a combo of a casting rod and a casting reel. No free spool, fancy drag, adjustable this and tempered that.
When casted, the reel handles spun, the braided cloth line followed a heavy lure to a fairly distant target, and that was all there was to it.
Unless, of course, the angler in charge failed to thumb the revolving reel to a stop and was thus doomed to several minutes of sorting out a backlash of tangled line. And that of course, was at times so frustrating that certain, nonfamily words might follow, directed of course, to the errant reel and tangled line.
Then came the synthetics, the factory produced stuff made of then recently developed nylons and vinyls. Nylon line, one strand only, was dubbed “mono,” short for monofilament.
The first monofilament fishing lines were reasonably good and represented a huge leap in fishing techniques, precise lure presentations, tackle and supported new gear like open face spinning reels, smaller and lighter lures, and downsized everything.
The key word here is reasonably because the first editions of mono quickly gave way to upgrades and engineered improvements that produced lines of all shapes, sizes, colors, etc.
New developments lowered the amount of memory in coiled lines made lines more abrasive resistant and a lot more.
Today, the fishing line department in most tackle shops offer dozens of brands and selections still dominated by a wide variety of monofilaments plus super strong braided, lines and in a lesser degree, a few specialty lines.
All have advantages and suggested uses.
Fluorocarbon
But remember that word fluorocarbon? Yep, it is a preferred line of the present and future and here’s why.
It is single strand, thus a monofilament. It is a stand of polyvinylidene fluoride.
So what you ask, after all, who cares about whatever that multi-syllable fluoride is anyway.
Point is that the material listed above is blended and made into fishing lines that are real performers.
Fluorocarbon sinks because it is denser than most other lines which makes for better running lures, more precise depth presentations and according to most accomplished tackle testers, it is less visible, possibly more durable, and does not absorb water.
Its visibilities claim is based on the way it reacts to sunlight in about the same way water does.
Another claim, a happy one, is that fluorocarbon has little or no memory, the pesky thing that makes some lines imitate synthetic Slinkies.
The drawback? It costs more than most monofilament lines. If nothing else, fluorocarbon makes a perfect rod length leaded for almost every presentation.
