How To Choose The Right Fishing Line

Mark Berg: Good day, I am Mark Berg here, and welcome to Rapala Fishing News. I am with Chris Beldon from Rapala and we are going to talk about braid and which braids to choose, when you go out fishing; it can be a little confusing. Hey! How are you mate? Chris Beldon: Good. Mark Berg: Yeah, I am alright. Okay, now Sufix is obviously, the braid that Rapala sells, so comes out of the Rapala banner, alright tell me this, I am a bream fisher, I have been using mono for years and I am getting the soft plastics and I want to choose a braid. Now, I'll look up at these boards here and we could reflex some true braid and matrix pro and fuse and all these different ones, it is a little confusing, shed some light on what to choose, for our viewers. Now say for example, for bream fishing one which should I go for? Chris Beldon: Okay, well if you are bream fishing you are going to be doing a lot of casting. So the best thing you want to get is; the one that's made for casting like this performance fuse is here. Okay it's a fused line which means that the Dyneema fibers that have been heat and fused together and it provides a more stiffer braid when you stand on the one which is sensational for casting and it just goes through guides really well, like tie some knot and not very well, which you are going to need for joining onto your later material. Mark Berg: Okay so this one is cool, the Sufix Performance Fuse and this is good for me. Now what about -- how heavy? We know this is 30 pound; obviously we are not going to use that. Chris Beldon: Well, you are not going to use 30 pound, I mean you want to look at sort of 4 to 8 pounds, 6 is generally the best. I mean you can go heavier, if you want it, but it's not necessary. Mark Berg: Because you need to put right ones. Chris Beldon: Yeah, exactly. I mean if you are fishing hard structure you want to go with something that's a bit heavier. Mark Berg: Okay that's very, very abrasive resistant as well. Chris Beldon: Yeah, it is. Mark Berg: Okay, well there is our bream fishing now. What about snapper? Chris Beldon: Snapper, okay well. Mark Berg: Again fishing soft plastics for snappers, it's very popular right now, what braid? Chris Beldon: Well, you can use the Performance Fuse again, but the Matrix Pro is probably more suited because it's a slightly heavier braid, generally even fishing snapper even deeper water than bream. Mark Berg: Yeah. Chris Beldon: And it's a bit more supple as well. Mark Berg: It kind of feels like it is half way between the sort of normal and softer braid and the fuse. Chris Beldon: It is exactly, yeah that's right. It is a mid range of braid. So it's not incredibly subtle for sort of bottom matching and it's not incredibly stiff for casting. It's in between. Mark Berg: Okay so before we go any further, let me ask you this. What is the major advantage in fishing with braid as opposed to mono? Chris Beldon: Low stretch and increased sensitivity. Mark Berg: Yeah you can really feel. Chris Beldon: You can feel as you touch the braid and you can strike. Mark Berg: You get a big bound in your mind in either way it's coming though the water. Okay that's cool. Now the last one and we all love fishing for Barramundi in this country. Again, what do you suggest? Chris Beldon: Well, Barramundi again, is casting and throwing application. You look into these two again, but there is a braid that Sufix had released specifically for this sort of application, I guess. It's Performance Stretch and it's in the same range as the Performance Fuse, but this is a braid that has been manufactured with the use of Dyneema fibers and Dacron. Okay, the Dacron incorporated into this product, it gives you a 6% stretch unlike the most braids which is near 0, but it is not a monofilament, it still retain the same sensitivity and action as standard braid. Mark Berg: This one is cool. Chris Beldon: Performance Stretch. Mark Berg: Performance Stretch from Sufix as well. Chris Beldon: So what the increased stretch does is with the big fish like Barramundi, who is notorious, smashing and crashing in rivers. It gives you a little bit of give on a take. So a common thing that Barramundi, is pulling hooks and things like that -- [Voice Overlap] Chris Beldon: But you still retain all the sensitivity that you need. Mark Berg: So all the features of braid with a little bit of advantage, but a little bit of stretch as well. Chris Beldon: That's right, really, really good beginner. Mark Berg: Well, I guess if anyone just goes to the retailer they can just simply ask them what's the best way to go. But that's certainly shed some light for me and I am sure, some of our viewers as well. Now the other thing too that I wanted to talk to you about, this is whole thing about fish the system with Sufix. What's that about? I mean there is different things now. There is fluorocarbon and mono that we use for leaders, what's this system that you are talking about? Chris Beldon: Okay, well the system that Sufix have developed is pretty much comprises of a set of instructions and just methods best suited to fishing the line. For every braid that I make there is a mono or a leader or a fluorocarbon that's suited to that. Mark Berg: So it's as if you made for that. Because one thing I find sometimes when we travel and I don't bring a leader material with me and I am using braid sometimes the guard will give me that mono and I will tie the leader to the mono I'll tie the leader to the braid and the braid will cut straight through that mono, obviously that mono it doesn't suit that braid. Chris Beldon: That's right. Mark Berg: So the system, the Sufix system actually rules that sort of stuff out and just match perfectly, the braid is matched perfectly, to the leader that you are using. Chris Beldon: That's correct. Mark Berg: So that's the Sufix system. Now one last thing I want to ask you about and lot of fishermen ask me about, it as well, is fluorocarbon. What's the big deal about, this fluorocarbon? I mean it's been around for a while; all I know is it just looks like normal fishing mono line to me and it's expensive. But why is it, what's so good about it? Chris Beldon: Okay, well the thing with fluorocarbon is that, it is sinking leader. It sinks up to 4 times as fast your monofilament. But the biggest point with fluorocarbon is that, it's pretty much a 100% invisible underwater. So it's really good for a finicky fish or something that's just not taking, but it can quite often turn a boat on -- Mark Berg: Purely, because they can't see at all. Chris Beldon: Yeah. Mark Berg: Well that's a pretty big advantage. Chris Beldon: Versatile and abrasion resistance. Mark Berg: Abrasion resistant as well. Well mate, that have shed some light not only on the Sufix range, but certainly on what to choose when going to change a line to a braid material. So thanks mate. Chris Beldon: Alright. Mark Berg: I appreciate that, that was also, Sufix check it out.