Thread: Does line color really matter?

Redears are the one fish for which I use a flourocarbon leader. I sat in a boat with a guy who was using flourocarbon and tied on a leader to my Stren Yellow when he had boated about 10 fish to my NONE. I immediately started catching - never did catch up though.

Learned my lesson.

So do you guys use a leader night fishing too? I use the hi-vis yellow so that I can see it at night, but use the same for my day trips too.

I only fish for crappie unless I've got my wife and kids with me, so I can really only answer from the crappie standpoint. I love using Power Pro 10lb braid with light wire hooks when casting jigs because it has no stretch and you can instantly feel the thump. However I have noticed a trade off. Because of the absence of stretch, sometimes I tend to straighten hooks out in the the fish's mouth. With mono, you have that little bit of give in the line to act as a shock absorber, tho you can't feel the thump as well. With that being said, my brother has wore me out before using mono while I am using braid(without a leader). We use hi-viz Mr. Crappie brand in 4 or 6 lb test. For crappie, I know the yellow doesn't spook them, because of our experiences.

I don't know if it's just luck or its a fact, but I have seen mono outfish braid(without a leader) more times than not, no matter the color of each.

Now, if u tie and flouro leader to your braid, it works really well, but it tends to break off as much as the mono and it's a real pain to have to tie on a new leader and your jig each time u break off.

In my perfect world I wld have 4 or more rods with braid and flouro leaders tied on so if I broke off I cld just grab another rod, because I believe that is the perfect setup, but that's not in my budget right now.