The Truth about Flourocarbon

[Bamboozle]

In my world good beer is an expensive fly fishing "gotta have it" as well as a couple of decent stogies, as for the rest...it all works.

With fishing, it's all about the hassle factor which I will pay dearly to rid myself of. The curling issues I experienced with mono tippets pissed me off and were a hassle.

However carrying around mono for one thing and fluoro for another is a another hassle, especially when I can barely remember to check what sizes of ONE type of leader material I have with me when I venture out.

I think the good beer has something to do with that too...;-)

 

[Dave_W]

afishinado wrote:
In the link from the OP, there is a great article with actual scientific testing of nylon vs fluoro lines > http://www.bigindianabass.com/big_indiana_bass/the-truth-about-fluorocarbon.html

With respect to using fluoro tippet because of it's better resistance (the main reason I use it for nymphing in the rocks and rough-mouth or toothy fish).

Scientific testing of the actual hardness (abrasion resistance) confirm your results > out of the water there appears to be no difference. But under actual conditions, when the lines are used in the water, nylon softens, which makes it more limp, but it also becomes less abrasion resistant. Here is the data from the article:

Rockwell Hardness - I found this one interesting. Rockwell Hardness is a standard method of measuring hardness of a material. Everyone seems to state that fluorocarbon is much tougher than mono, but it depends on the specific formulation used and tested. Whereas the different types of nylon can vary with a reading between 88 -114 in the test, fluorocarbon scores 100. So though fluoro seems tougher due to a slightly higher modulus in flexure, in actual hardness tests it doesn't score appreciably better. But keep in mind these are dry tests, and once nylon absorbs water, it can lose between 30-40% of its modulus and would definitely feel (if not become) "softer" at that point.

My experience using both confirms that fluoro is more abrasion resistant. I carry both types of tippet with me all the time, and fluoro is be a lot tougher and tends to fare better when nymphing and with the toothies and rough-mouth fish.

The second thing one can glean from the data, is nylon becomes softer and more limp after it absorbs water, plus it is a little less dense than fluoro > perfect for fishing dries, especially smaller flies where floating well and preventing drag is very important.

I use nylon tippet for most of my dry fly fishing for trout and fluoro tippet for nymphing and streamer fishing.

Interesting!
I was not aware that flouro's abrasion resistance is really only greater when wet.

I may re-do my little experiment, but soak the lines first.

 

[afishinado]

DveW wrote:
Interesting!
I was not aware that flouro's abrasion resistance is really only greater when wet.

I may re-do my little experiment, but soak the lines first.

No, fluoro's abrasion resistance remains the same wet or dry. Nylon line absorbs water and softens and becomes less abrasion resistant when wet.

 

[moon1284]

I think the best way to choose tippet/leader material is to learn how to tie good knots quickly, check your leader/tippet, and use a brand you have confidence in.

I use maxima mono for everything and chameleon with streamers. I dont nymph but one day my buddies were cleaning up nymphing and mouthing off because I wasn't catching anything. I took one of their indy rigs from the boat and hooked a fish in about 3 casts and broke it off. I bitched that it was the stupid frog hair tippet. I tied another section on and broke another fish off. After that I put the rod down and grabbed a beer. To prove a point to me, my buddy tied on more froghair and caught 3-4 more big trout on that rig throughout the day. I still say froghair sucks, but obviously it's in my head. I really dont break many fish off at all, even steelhead buf obviously it was me and not the line.

 

[outsider]

Out of necessity, I fish nymphs probably 80% of the time I fish. I'd rather fish a dry fly. That being said, I found no appreciable difference using fluorocarbon for the trout fishing I do, be it catch rate or abrasion resistance. I'm very happy with Orvis Superstrong Plus mono. Found no need to pay the difference in cost.

 

[Dave_W]

afishinado wrote:
No, fluoro's abrasion resistance remains the same wet or dry. Nylon line absorbs water and softens and becomes less abrasion resistant when wet.

Okay - got it.

Experiment again...

 

[Dave_W]

Got out the 20lb mono and some 20lb flouro and did the following experiment:

I pulled a loop around the edge of an old pair of scissors and drew the loop along the edge as many times as it took to sever the strand. Did this five times with each mono and flouro.

The average number of times is took to sever dry mono was 14.8. The average number of times it took to sever dry flouro was (surprise!) - exactly 14.8.
I tried to apply the same amount of force with my fingers as I could control for. This suggests that for DRY mono and DRY flouro....their resistance to sharp edges is the same.

After soaking some mono and flouro for a few minutes, I repeated the above method...
It took an average of 9.4 pulls to sever the WET mono.
It took an average of 15.4 pulls to sever the WET flouro.


Hhmmm.....
For what this (not very) scientific experiment is worth....
It does support what Afishinado mentions further up this thread: When WET, mono has less abrasion strength than flouro. Flouro does not show significant difference whether wet or dry.

 

[allan_s]

The only benefit I have found to using flouro is the ability of it not to weaken when soaked in water. Glad to see my experience has been confirmed by the experiment above!

I would bet most people have experienced this if you have ever fished for a few hours without a tippet/leader change.

Nylon/copolymers are not all created equal and some get weaker very quickly - while others seem to last to the point that I haven't found them to be a disadvantage.

I have had poor experiences with Rio Powerflex Plus. It becomes highly visible and becomes very brittle after only a hour or so of fishing in hot/sunny conditions.

Rio Suppleflex, Frogs hair and Trout Hunter have all been good to me in the nylon/copolymer department.

Flouro my favorites are seaguar and trout hunter.