Today we’re going to look at two of the three major line types for bass fishing as we discuss the similarities and differences of fluorocarbon vs monofilament fishing lines. You can fish the vast majority of bass fishing techniques with just these two line types, though there are some things you simply cannot do without braided line and others still that braid is more efficient with. But that conversation is for another day. Today, let’s look at fluorocarbon versus monofilament.
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Monofilament fishing line, often referred to as “mono”, is typically made of nylon pellets extruded into a single strand of nylon. Fluorocarbon line, or “fluoro”, is made from polyvinylidene fluoride pellets that are melted down and made into a single strand. So both lines are single strands of material, but those two materials have very different attributes.
You’ll notice that a few of the same attributes of these lines are listed in both the pros and cons lists, like the fact that monofilament line floats. That’s because some of these pros and cons are situational. For instance, when wanting to fish a bait along the bottom, the fact that mono floats is a bad thing and will work against your presentation. But when fishing with a topwater bait, this attribute of mono is a good thing and will help keep your bait on top of the water.
The adverse is true for fluorocarbon. Because it sinks, this is a much better line for fishing baits along the bottom. But also because it sinks, you won’t want to use this line with a topwater.
It is also situational as to whether or not the stretchiness of each of these lines is a good thing. Fluoro has less stretch, so it’s better for setting the hook on single hook baits and on long casts with treble hooked baits. But the stretch of mono is acutely beneficial when fishing close quarters with a treble hook bait, as it absorbs the shock of a sudden hookset and allows the fish to fight without running the risk of tearing the hooks free.
Monofilament is a great entry level line for anglers getting into bass fishing because it’s considerably more affordable than most fluorocarbon lines (though there are recent fluoro offerings like Basix from Seaguar that offer a quality fluoro for a more competitive price when compared to monofilament).
This line is also a little easier to cast, though the casting range is more limited because of the larger line diameters. Knots are also a little easier to tie with mono, and the knot strength is better. This takes a little more of the need for experience out of the equation, again making mono often the better selection for newcomers to the sport.
Mono is the better option for topwater baits primarily because it floats. If you were to try to fish a topwater bait like a Spook on fluoro, you’d have to work the bait with your rod tip up and constantly put in effort to keep the line from sinking and pulling the nose of your bait down.
The stretch of mono is also again a good thing with topwaters like poppers, when fishing them close to the boat. These baits have small hooks and the fish are often full of energy when they bite. So, the stretch of mono is very beneficial when hooking into a hard-fighting fish close the boat with small hooks.
Because of it’s affordability, mono is also a great line to use for backing on your reel. Even if you do have a presentation that fluorocarbon is better for, you’ll never need a full spool of it on a baitcaster. You can use mono to fill your reel about halfway and then use a double-uni knot (or some other line-to-line knot) to connect your monofilament backing to your fluorocarbon. Then finish spooling the reel with fluoro. In doing this, you’ll significantly cut the cost of spooling the reel as opposed to what it would have cost to use only fluoro.
Because of fluorocarbon’s lower stretch, higher strength with a smaller diameter, abrasion resistance, sinking characteristic and sensitivity, it’s a great line for many single hook baits like football jigs, swim jigs and Texas rigs. Mono is sufficient for setting small and thin treble hooks, but when trying to generate enough force for an impact hookset, the stretchiness of mono makes it hard to hook fish with bigger, bolder hooks.
These baits are also often fished around cover, so the more abrasion resistant fluoro wins out here too. And because many of these baits are fished several feet beneath the water’s surface, the fact that fluoro sinks allows the bait to get down deeper faster and stay there. The thinner diameter helps with this as well, as the line can cut through the water quicker than the larger diameter, equivalent pound test in mono would be able to.
Fluoro’s thinner diameter and ability to sink also helps decrease the bow in your line beneath the water, creating a more direct point of contact with the bait. In addition to fluoro already being more sensitive than mono, this vastly increases the sensitivity of your presentation as a whole, giving you the ability to maintain bottom contact better, as well as feel the differences in bottom composition and detect bites more easily.
These same attributes also make fluoro better for mid-depth and deep-diving crankbaits. Fluoro’s thinner diameter and innate ability to sink work in favor of the presentation where the thicker mono that floats would work against it.
Using a 12-pound fluoro with a deep-diving crankbait versus a 12-pound mono adds multiple feet to the bait’s depth range, helps it reach the bottom quicker, and allows for a much longer cast. All of this means the bait will be in the strikezone longer. And because of fluoro’s better abrasion resistance, it’s less likely to be damaged as it moves through rock, wood and other cover along the bottom.
Mono can be better for some shallow cranking and small wake baits. With a wake bait, you’ll want the lure to stay right along the surface. So using a larger diameter mono that floats will help here. In the same way, a 20-pound-test mono with its larger diameter will allow you to crank a square bill through a shallow area easier than 15-pound-test fluoro would, by taking away a bit of the bait’s ability to dive.
Fluoro has less memory than monofilament and a smaller diameter, which makes it easier to use on spinning reels. And because fluoro nearly disappears beneath the water’s surface, it is a much better line for finesse techniques in high-pressure situations.
The smaller diameter for the equivalent pound test and fluoro’s added abrasion resistance also allow you to use a smaller pound test than you could with mono, making the line even harder to detect in high-visibility, high-pressure situations, such as fishing a Damiki rig or dropshot in ultra-clear water.
These high-pressure situations aren’t relegated to finesse fishing with spinning gear alone either; this is another reason why fluoro is better for flipping and bed fishing when impact hooksets already make fluoro the clear choice.
Though fluorocarbon lines are becoming increasingly affordable and monofilament lines are more transparent than ever before, there are still plenty of stark differences to note when discussing fluorocarbon versus monofilament lines. Abrasion resistance, smaller line diameter and lower stretch are among key aspects that make fluorocarbon the better choice for a wide variety of baits. But the ease of use, stretch and ability to float of mono make it the better choice at times as well.
The key is to not get too bogged down in this conversation and instead perfect your craft overtime. At the end of the day, each of these lines are serviceable in many of the same situations. So don’t think you need to have 10 reels spooled up with a variety of line sizes in each line type to start with. You can do a lot with one reel spooled with either 15-pound test mono or 15-pound test fluoro, and you can fish the majority of bass fishing techniques fairly well with a combination of these two.
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Nylon is a family of polyamide polymers, generally of high molecular weights. Nylon can be drawn from a heated mass or extruded through spinnerets to form strands. It is viable in a wide range of sizes, from large monofilaments to the finest fibers. It has huge applications across various sectors specifically as bristles, fabrics, rope, and yarn. Nylon is highly resistant to wear, heat, and chemicals making it an attractive engineering material, though dimensional stability due to water absorption does impose some limits.
Polyester comes from a broad family of polymers. Most references to polyester relate to PET (polyethylene terephthalate). The polyester family includes various naturally occurring chemicals such as cutin, a film that covers the exposed surfaces of most plants. Other polyesters come in the forms of synthetics such as polybutyrate.
Polyester fibers are commonly used in fabric manufacture, either as a sole component (Thermafleece®, for example) or as part of a blend to improve the properties of natural fibers (e.g. polyester cotton). Polyester fibers are highly water-resilient but melt easily. Fortunately, the materials are hard to ignite at normal flame temperatures because they melt instead, and become somewhat self-extinguishing.
Liquid crystal polymers are a recent development, offering enhanced properties because of a modified chemical/crystalline structure. Liquid crystal polyesters were among the first of these. They offer elevated heat tolerance and useful wear properties for seals and bearings. In this article, we will compare nylon vs polyester and highlight their differences in terms of applications, properties, cost, and sustainability.
Nylon is the commercial name for synthetic thermoplastics in the polyamide family. They are usually manufactured through the reaction of diamines and a dicarboxylic acid. A molecule with carboxylic groups reacts with a molecule that has amine groups at both ends to create polyamide. Alternatively, nylon can be made from a self-condensing amino acid or its lactam. These are identified by ―CONH― groups arranged in a ring. One such amino acid is ε-caprolactam.
Early nylon was developed as a replacement for silk. It can undergo significant elongation before fracture. Nylon resists abrasion, most chemicals, and all organic attacks. It has good thermal and fatigue resistance and is highly machinable. Additionally, it is also a very effective noise dampener.
The four main nylon grades are nylon 66, 11, 12, and 46. These designations are derived from the makeup of their polymeric chains. The diamine's carbon atom count is represented by the first number, and the acid's carbon count is represented by the second. The common material nomenclature is PA, as in polyamide (PA6 or PA6/66 for example).
Nylon is commonly seen in black, white, and natural variants. Nylon 66 is the most common type for engineering applications and the plastic industry. The chemical formula for Nylon 66 is (C12H22N2O2)n.
Toothbrushes, gloves, wheels, guitar strings, tennis racket strings, medical devices, electrical connectors, fishing lines, and more get made out of nylon. For more information, see our guide on nylon.
Polyester is a broad family name for a range of synthetic polymers including poly(butylene terephthalate) (PBT), poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET), polyethylene terephthalate glycol (PETG), poly(hexamethylene terephthalate) (PHT), and poly(propylene terephthalate) (PPT). These are common engineering polymers with various useful properties. For more information, see our guide on polyester.
Nylons of all types are manufactured from petrochemical source materials. Nylons are not biodegradable and have extremely long endurance in the natural environment, making them a serious pollution problem. Of particular note is the impact of lost fishing nets and ropes on marine mammals. Once the polymer is shredded by environmental pressures, it remains stable as small, micro, and nanoparticles which negatively impact everything from birds to turtles to filter-feeding mollusks.
Nylon on its own is easy to recycle. However, because its widest use is in fabrics and ropes, it can be very hard to identify and separate from other materials like rubber, glass, or other fibers. This renders recycling entirely impractical by current sort/shred/melt/extrude methods.
Polyesters are also manufactured from hydrocarbon-sourced raw materials. They are stable, non-biodegradable, and have long lifespans in the environment. This characteristic, combined with their use in short-life packaging, has made polyesters into a high-volume environmental hazard. They present similar problems to nylons in terms of impacts on fauna, though polyester is far less common in ropes and nets.
Polyester (PET) in packaging films is easy to recycle and is identified by the ♳ mark. It’s important to understand, though, that the glycol-modified form, PETG, must be separated before recycling. PET and PETG polyesters both recycle very easily once sorted, but they’re hard to differentiate. The resulting product in either case is near-virgin second-grade material that has the potential for multiple use/re-melt cycles without significant degradation.
Polyester fabrics in fleece form can also be recycled, but in blends with rubber and other fibers, recycling is impossible.
Nylon 6 for molding ranges from $1.80-2.20 per kg, in bulk. The price of nylon 6 fiber, on the other hand, is $2.12-2.50 per kg. The price of virgin polyester (PET) granules for molding is $0.85-2.00 per kg while recycled PET granules cost $0.85-1.10 per kg.
Alternative materials that can take the place of nylon and polyester depend heavily on the type of application. For nylon, options are:
For polyesters, alternatives are:
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