Some might say softness is all important, others visibility, yet others stiffness

Sometimes this is the baiting situation that I have created, but more often than not it is the rig which they have sensed. Now this might be because of the hook, lead, bait fixing, or main line rising from the bait, but often it is the hook length which appears to be causing the problem. There are several different trains of thought when it comes to what are the most important attributes of a hook length. Some might say softness is all important, others visibility, yet others stiffness. At different times all of these can be important, but it is very easy to get confused if you don’t take the circumstances into consideration. Realistically, there are four types of hook length material in common use. Braids, nylon, fluorocarbon and combination braids, such as snake skin. Obviously, there are also a lot of differences between brands, and also between the different varieties produced. All I can say is, do your homework. Although most of the products on the market do the job they are designed to do, there is still a lot of marketing hype around, and it is not unheard of for a product to be significantly different to what it says on the box. Only recently, my Father bought some braided main line for barbel fishing which, when he loaded the reel up, literally came unbraided and broke at less than half the knot strength on the spool. And this with a product which had only just before been given the thumbs up by a national monthly magazine! With some of the more hi-tech lines costing upwards of ten quid a spool it is obviously not feasible to test every product on the market. Go for name brands, go for products that appear to be selling well (i.e. not covered in a layer of dust) and those which have decent sized spools. Those little dispenser boxes might fit nicely in your tackle box, but they don’t half muck up a lot of the stiffer materials, especially fluorocarbon and nylon. To me visibility is by far the most important feature of a hook length, although this probably reflects my favoured forms of fishing. Try presenting a free-lined bait to a chub and the fish will run a mile if you are using braid. The same can be said when floater fishing for carp. Conversely, fish a bait hard on the bottom, amongst light weed, and the braid will catch you plenty of fish as it will be far less visible than if it were cutting through the water. It all comes down to horses for courses, really. That said, for an increasing amount of my fishing I find myself using lines which are low visibility in all conditions, rather than braids which may be invisible under some. For most of my fishing then, I use fluorocarbon in varying strains from 4lb to 30lb. This is the most invisible line available to date, although it is rather stiff and quite thick when compared to nylon. For the most part, these potential negatives have not proven to be a problem, but if I feel that they might be then I would be quite happy to revert to the ever faithful Drennan Double Strength. DS has received a lot of stick over the years, but it is still light years beyond most of the other lines on the market. When using these lines though you must be very careful with your knots. Blood knots are a no-no. Palomars are OK, as are Grinners. You even have to be careful when tying knotless knots as there is the chance that the eye of the hook may damage the line. This is easily resolved though by sliding a tiny piece of pole float rubber over the hook shank and using this as a buffer for the knot. Fluorocarbon and Double Strength cover all of my fishing now except for some carp fishing. After all, the attributes that they share makes them just as useful for roach as they do for barbel. I will though sometimes revert to braid when carp fishing. This is mainly just a confidence thing, as the extra tangles you get with braid are a pain. Paradoxically, I do use braid when the fish are coming thick and fast, as I find that the constant wear on a monofilament line caused by playing fish does cause them to fail. When catching huge numbers of carp in the USA a few years ago, the hook length would break on average after about every ten fish. Funnily enough, most of the breakages occurred when the stress of the line was released, i.e. when removing the hook. Why this should be I never worked out, but it was a problem solved by going back to braid. The newer combination braids, I must admit, have no part in my armoury. I really cannot see the benefit in using them, they are neither all that soft nor particularly stiff, but if they pull your string go for it! Others may disagree, but they are not for me. Choosing the right hook length is often a confidence thing. I have friends, who swear by braid, others nylon, yet others who tie on what ever they can get for free!

Don’t fall into the trap of using the same material blindly without assessing it’s merits for the job. Not all lines are created equally, and some are more effective than others!