Braided Line For Sunfish

    Sunfish, particularly big sunfish, are line shy. Also, if you want to cast a light lure or bait a long way you must use a small diameter line. For that reason most serious sunfishermen use 4 pound or even 2 pound test mono filament. Of course, the line easily breaks if a larger fish takes the bait or if the line gets hung up. Where I normally fish big bass, catfish and carp are regularly caught. There are a lot of ways to get hung up. It is very annoying to have a slip bobber rig which takes 10 minutes to thread broken off, not to mention the cost of the premium balsa bobbers I use. 
    One solution is braided line made from a fine filament trade named Spectra. The micro filament material is so fine that several strands can be braided together to form a very thin flexible yet strong line. Several manufacturers make such a line. I bought a spool PowerPro 10 pound test line. It has the same diameter as two pound test mono filament. It was not cheap. A 300 yard spool cost me $26.00 from Amazon. However, 300 yards will last me for years.

     The braided line was the solution to my problems with 4 pound test mono filament. However, it introduced a few of its own. 
     First, the old standard clinch or Berkley knot will not work with braid. They just slip right off. So I had to learn to tie two new knots: the uniknot and the Palomer knot. The uniknot is used to splice the braided line, to tie a leader to the line, or to tie the braided line to mono filament backing to save the high cost line. The Palomer knot is used most of the time to tie the hook or sinker to the braided line. Learn to tie the Palomer Knot at this web page. The Uniknot can be found on this web page. 

          Second, the line tends to ravel unless a perfectly clean cut is made, making it difficult to run the line through the eye of a small hook. Most tackle box cutting tools will not cut the line cleanly. I use a small pair of sharp line scissors. 

     Third, the braided line tends to snarl up around the bobber or the rod tip, and since it is so small in diameter it is a bear to untangle. Patience is the only sugestion I have for this problem.


     Fourth, the Gizmo brand bobble stoppers are the best I have ever found. They beat all the other designs hands down. But they slip on the braided line. The solution is to thread two of the holes as usual, then wrap the line one time around the bobber stopper, then continue threading the last two holes. 



     Even with its flaws the line works well for me and I highly recommend it.