MONOFILAMENT, SUPERLINES, FLUOROCARBONS...

Every skill requires tools. The artist has tiny brushes and brushes wider than the hand. The architect uses pencil leads of various thickness to trace lines along rulers, squares, shapes, and angles. The photographer carries a lens to match each purpose, a filter for every effect.

Line is a tool. Using the same line for every job is like an artist trying to do everything with one brush. Imagine painting details like buttons on a shirt with a brush bigger than your thumb, or laying on background colors with six horse hairs.

Imagine fighting trophy walleyes out of boulders in current with a soft line that nicks easily. Might get lucky once, even twice. But successful fishing, like other sports, is a matter of putting the percentages in your favor.

Techniques like line watching, practiced over time, become skills. Seeing the line jump or move on a strike is an advantage. The right tool for the job may be a high-vis line, but other considerations must always be factored in. In very clear, shallow water, high-vis may turn some walleyes away from a bait. Such judgments come with experience.

Good fishermen match high-vis characteristics to conditions. Dark, windy days may call for bright line. Bright fluorescent line jumps out against almost any background. All lines are not equal. In most instances, matching line characteristics to fishing conditions will make you more effective, make fishing more productive and pleasurable, and result in a better day on the water.

Traditional Line by Design
Nylon lines are designed to do specific things or to cover a range of applications. About ten basic nylon polymers offer properties considered desirable in monofilament fishing lines. Most lines are made of one (homopolymers) or two (copolymers) of these nylons.

The nylons are melted, then extruded through a dye, and stretched. The nylons in combination with the extrusion process determine line characteristics. Maxima, for instance, uses the same polymer in four different lines. Each line is different, though, because each is extruded differently.

Line choice is determined by technique. Open water trolling, the fastest-growing segment of the walleye world, is an example. Trolling lures behind planer boards, diver-planers, and downrigger balls demands that hooks set themselves. Rods are in holders, and if everything isn’t in sync, fish routinely escape. The system works best with low-stretch lines that can withstand shock.

Thin, high tensile-strength copolymers work well with certain systems, especially flatlining and trolling with small, in-line planer boards. But these lines are seldom abrasion resistant, nor are they very shock proof.

Thin lines cast well and also help you make the most of vertical presentations in current and wind. Smaller diameters mean less line is affected by moving air and water. Lighter jigs reach bottom quicker. Added tensile strength allows you to cut back on diameter while retaining the hooksetting power of thicker lines with the same pound test.

Abrasion-resistant lines withstand the stress and shock of trolling with things like Dipsy Divers and Fish Seekers. These lines stretch less than lines in most other categories. The primary function of these lines is to present baits and to haul heavy fish out of dense wood or rock cover.

Limp, castable lines have qualities you can’t get in tough abrasion-resistant monofilaments. With these lines, you can at times throw a lure 5 to 10 percent farther—important when casting jigs or lures along weedlines or reefs. Most fishermen also use such lines to present livebait. But most anglers prefer nick-proof line for presenting spinner rigs; limp line grooves where the clevis revolves on the line.

Most companies offer an all-purpose line with some abrasion resistance and some supple characteristics as well. Might seem like the answer to all your problems. And for most fishermen, these lines perform well in all but the most extreme conditions. Technicians, though, do better with lines designed for specific purposes.

Sometimes you must sacrifice one line characteristic and make do. In very cold weather, low stretch, thin diameter, high tensile-strength lines become wiry. Abrasion-resistant lines develop coil memory. You need limp line, even for working cover.

Remove the tail-end section of line often throughout a day of fishing. And respool frequently.