Clean the fishing line

[MexicanGulf]

Fluorocarbon is a very expensive material. However, the market offers a varied range for all budgets. Of course there is "Fluorocarbon and Fluorocarbon", a less expensive Fluorocarbon can generally be used only once or maximum twice. This is due to the quality of the material itself. Unlike a high-end Fluorocarbon, defined as "Premium" which can be reused several times. The world's leading brands for the production of Fluorocarbon are exclusively Japanese. What many people ignore about this material is that it must be constantly cleaned. This practice is common on the best fishing boats in the world. Unknown or almost unknown, among the mediocre group of fishermen. It is good practice to moisten a linen cloth, preferably light in color, with denatured alcohol, using the latter to delicately rub the Fluorocarbon line. Don't worry about the smell, the alcohol evaporates instantly. You will be surprised by the amount of dirt this material can retain, compromising its "invisibility" power. Through the use of this expedient you will be able to use 100% of the line made of this expensive material, it will remain healthy for multiple fishing sessions. 

[jurelometer]

I have to disagree here. I would encourage folk to use their fluoro leader until it gets abraded to save both cost and the environment.

Unlike nylon, fluorocarbon line is astonishingly durable. It does not absorb water, is highly UV resistant,solvent resistant, and is not affected by ordinary temperature ranges (just don't bake it in your oven).  The stuff can be fished indefinitely if it is not damaged by abrasion.  But you might need to retie some knots. I keep cutting down and retying my fluoro leaders as needed, and get plenty of use out of them. 

As per one fluorocarbon product vs another:  It is possible to see for ourselves how hard/stiff and how thick a leader is, but the rest of the mechanical properties are not quantified beyond the listed breaking strength, which is generally not accurate enough for comparison.  It is impossible for us fishermen to determine which product is actually superior beyond unreliable anecdotal evidence and dubious manufacturer claims. I have not found much of a difference between any of the reputable brands for a given hardness or diameter and price has not correlated with higher quality, so I am not personally loyal to any given brand.

When compared to nylon, fluorocarbon has the advantage of greater hardness and usually greater breaking strength for a given diameter, plus negative buoyancy. So there is a reason to use it at times.

The claimed advantage of catching more fish by virtue of being less visible due to a refractive index closer to that of (pure) water has not been borne out by any scientific study that I am aware of.  However all types of clear monofilament do catch fish better than metal wire or tarred twine in studies done on commercial long line tuna fishing, so it is is possible that the slight refractive advantage of fluorocarbon over nylon might provide some minimal value. When I look underwater with a scuba mask, both are easily and pretty much equally visible in the 20-60 lb range that I generally use.

If you think that an alcohol wipe down will make a difference, more power to you. Since the material is highly resistant to alcohols, it won't matter what color the cloth is. You are not going to dye it.
 
I guess this places me "among the mediocre group of fishermen", along with everyone else that I have ever fished with, some of whom have a reputation for being quite accomplished anglers.

Buona fortuna!

-J

[MexicanGulf]

This practice is quite common among bluefin tuna fishermen. I have done several tests and I consider it a truly remarkable improvement. I fish for big bluefin tuna in in very clear water.

[Bill B]

FWIW....many of us spend quite bit of money for a fishing trip.  The extra cost of fresh line is cheap in comparison to the overall cost. I.E. new gear, transportation,  fish processing,  trip cost,  etc.  It can reach thousands of dollars.  Another $100 for fresh line is cheap insurance. Now on the flipside, some do multiple trips each year.  It would be wasteful to re-line each trip. 

Ive done both, fresh line for a trip and re-used line from last year.

Quite often by the end of the year (heck even by the end of 1 trip) my leader is too short from abrasion on the hull, break offs, being sawed off, etc.  A new leader is a must.  But I do have to say I've never had my line rot from sun damage. I've seen plenty of rotten line on 30 year old reels though.

Bill

[jurelometer]

FWIW....many of us spend quite bit of money for a fishing trip.  The extra cost of fresh line is cheap in comparison to the overall cost. I.E. new gear, transportation,  fish processing,  trip cost,  etc.  It can reach thousands of dollars.  Another $100 for fresh line is cheap insurance. Now on the flipside, some do multiple trips each year.  It would be wasteful to re-line each trip. 

Ive done both, fresh line for a trip and re-used line from last year.

Quite often by the end of the year (heck even by the end of 1 trip) my leader is too short from abrasion on the hull, break offs, being sawed off, etc.  A new leader is a must.  But I do have to say I've never had my line rot from sun damage. I've seen plenty of rotten line on 30 year old reels though.

Bill

That sounds about right to me.

Nylon is quite sensitive to UV exposure, especially since fishing line cannot use a bunch  of carbon black to mitigate.  Nylon 6-6 (the type of nylon used in fishing line) is not affected by normal (no oven) temps.  It will readily adjust to ambient humidity, so while it might seem hard and stiff in a SoCal garage, it will go back to normal when you start fishing it.

The UV damage accumulates over time, even just some daylight through a window.  It will be fine for many fishing trips, especially if you don't leave it out in the sun when not  fishing.  Nylon fishing  line that is kept completely in the dark should last for decades.

The rotted line is probably due long exposure to smaller amounts of UV light. When I strip nylon off of old reels, it usually starts looking fresher as I work my way down toward the arbor.  This is due to the lesser exposure to UV light.

BTW: Those fly guys that wear their 2lb leader spools outside their vests are asking for trouble

Nylon does permanently elongate and get thinner a bit  as it gets stretched- sort of a curse with materials that are elastic- more tendency to creep.  So if you are the super-careful type and pushing the nylon towards its load limit, it might be worth changing out nylon line and/or leaders more frequently (especially the stretchy stuff) if you are doing a lot of hard pulling.

Fluorocarbon is not affected much by UV.  Most flavors are not very stretchy, and will maintain most of the original breaking strength if not abraded.  It is not recycled.  Biodegradability is measured in the thousands of years.  We should probably keep this in mind.

Take all this with a grain of salt.  I am not trained in materials science, just learning what I can in order to make stuff and catch a fish every now and then.

-J

[jurelometer]

This practice is quite common among bluefin tuna fishermen. I have done several tests and I consider it a truly remarkable improvement. I fish for big bluefin tuna in in very clear water.

I would like to hear more about the sample size and methodology for your tests.  You must catch an awful lot of big bluefin and follow a rigorous testing methodology to justify this high confidence

Having said that -

Since fishing involves so many variables, and we don't have much time actually presenting our offerings to fish, getting statistically significant catch effectiveness data is pretty near impossible. This creates a decent argument for the benefit in blindly repeating  what you were doing when the catching was good. We just shouldn't confuse this with proof.

There is a lot of useful science-based information out there on tuna vision.   I think that it conflicts with the "scary leader" theory, but I will save that for another day.


-J

[MexicanGulf]

Hi,
I'll start by saying that I wasn't the first to invent (or use) this method of cleaning fishing line.  even if we want to be honest, I think I saw fishing line cleaned in a Dave Marciano documentary on TV. I started cleaning fishing line routinely not too long ago. in particular it was the summer season of a few years ago, strangely every time I cast off the line I recovered a strange dirt, a brown-like mucilage remained attached to the line. So I explained my problem and everyone advised me to clean the line with alcohol. Furthermore, this situation gave me pause when I was working on a fishing boat as a teenager. We often set sail fishing nets dirty with this "brown dirt". I remember asking the captain what it was and why we had to wash the nets every time we set sail. The answer is actually quite obvious. Well yes, my friends, not only fish swim in the water column and suspended among it... there are many microorganisms, mucilage and various dirt... a clean and very transparent Fluorocarbon certainly does not harm our fishing trip.  I clean about thirty feet of line with each drop into the water, I have nothing to lose at the bottom! the operation is not expensive and does not take me much time... you have no idea how much dirt remains on my white linen cloth even though the fluorocarbon apparently seems clean.

[oc1]

That mucilage is usually sticky/slimy bacteria and other microbe cells attracted to and attached to the surface tension of the water.  When you wind your line or pull net through the surface tension the crud instead adheres to the line.  It's sort of like the physics of water transfer printing.

[jurelometer]

I want to thank the OP for being open minded on debating the merits of this practice.  It's nice to be able to present different views in a productive manner, where we all get a little bit smarter.  Doesn't happen that often on the internet.

For the record, I am not convinced that this helps, but I am in agreement that there is plenty of logic in simply following the practices of successful fishermen, especially when the downside risk seems small.

An interesting experiment would be to drop some live and/or dead mackerels into a school of feeding tuna.  The baits would have a 8 inch section of line of similar diameters, but different  materials (fluoro, nylon, twine)-  or nothing tied to the lip.  I would be surprised if they did not get eaten equally as quickly. If the tuna show a preference for fluoro, and also clean fluoro over dirty fluoro, I would be surprised, but also enlightened

Not sure if this could be done ethically, as the line sections might not be good for the health of the tuna that eat them.

I believe from my experience that it is the amount of tension that the line creates that makes the difference. It can cause the bait to have a motion that does not "flip the feeding switch" as readily.  Remove the tension aspect and leader type should make much less of a difference. 

-J

[Gfish]

Interesting theory; line tension might = un-natural live bait motion...

[Bryan Young]

Interesting and thought provoking topic and discussion. 🤔🤔🤔 considering my bait and wait fishing method, I might give this a try. Clean vs unclean fluorocarbon as well as fluorocarbon vs monofilament using high low fishing method. Which gets more bites?

[MexicanGulf]

I wondered how much it would cost me to clean fishing line? Of course... nothing! So why shouldn't I do it if this operation leads me to hope to have one more chance for a fish-rich dinner?

[jurelometer]

I wondered how much it would cost me to clean fishing line? Of course... nothing! So why shouldn't I do it if this operation leads me to hope to have one more chance for a fish-rich dinner?

Can't argue with that!

[Brewcrafter]

While only somewhat related to this (and another one of those anecdotal "truths") I will say that I was always led to believe that folks that smoke (nicotine hands) and things like getting careless while gassing up the boat and getting residue on the hands or sunscreen are all general "bite killers" if you handle the line/bait/tie knots with contaminated hands.  I know when I had the privilege of salmon fishing with Maxed Out Ted he kept a bucket of diluted Dawn dish soap handy specifically to clean terminal tackle (especially if jellyfish/slime/etc was on the line) and he knows a thing or two about fishing..... - john

[jurelometer]

The salmon trollers up north  are really into this "bad scent"  theory.  I don't know why they think salmon prefer the taste of Dawn over sunscreen, beer, nicotine or jellyfish. 


-J