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I'm thinking about using braid for at least some of my cranking rods.
I'm familiar with it, as I use for green fish. :biggrin
What lb test is everyone using 20/6 or 30/8 or...?
I am thinking of using a 20 ft leader (12lb mono) and replacing when it gets down to 2 ft. Thoughts? Mono makes it easier to fastly tie the knot when changing colors/lures.
30lb power pro. Forget a mono leader and get some duo lock snap swivels for changing baits
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I'll second the snap swivel suggestion. That'll save a lot of headaches.
I would use a snap swivel and a short mono leader together, only because braid can be pain to get undone when it wraps around a swivel and a lure.Quote:
Originally Posted by RK1
Techno2000 said it all, I use 20# braid and 10# mono for leader.
10/1 Power Pro and Fireline is what I use, with a 10lb leader that's about 10ft long, and a snap swivel on the end.
40/10 Power Pro Hi viz yellow. No leader and I use a regular duo lock snap without a swivel. I use braid for durability and to have a better chance of getting my crankbait back if I get hung. The power pro is good stuff. On my 3rd year with it and color has held up well. Bulk spools online are fairly cheap.
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20 lb yellow braid, no leader. Snap optional.
I learned that the hard way, trying to tie braid directly to a beetle spin, now I use a mono leader, and not a problem at all, any tangles are easy to come out.Quote:
Originally Posted by trypman1
I use 30 pound braided on line counter reels with a short 10 lb fluorocarbon leaders, make it easier to break off when hangup, with a snap swivel to help keep the twist of the line.
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In my cranking experience and from what I’ve gathered from others. Braided line is used to save your $5 a piece cranks. Tying any sort of mono or floro leader to the braid seems like it just defeats the purpose. If you’re going to use mono leaders I would just spool up the entire reel with mono and save yourself the money you would spend on braid...
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I never use mono on braid and just use a snap. Snap swivel gets to be a pain sometimes mixing with the crankbait. Disconnect the snap every now and then let 100’ of braid out while on the trolling motor for a few minutes and your line twists are gone.
if you use braid try to use different colors for each rod. I have orange, pink, green, yellow, blue, white, brown and one with black and white mixed. Makes picking knots out lots easier. Before I would sometimes have to cut my lines to untangle them. A couple of times my terrova went into a death spiral and wrapped my lines into about as bad a mess as could be.
I put a 10 lb fluorocarbon leader at the end of my braided line so it will break off, I can continue moving with my 7 lines without getting a tangle
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I use different color braid also and the colors are starting to fade. I was having a problem with one of my reels and streached the line out in the field to change it then reeled the line back on just the oppisite way and got some color back.
Disclaimer that I'm a relative newcomer to the crappie part of the world. In bass fishing, people tend to go softer for crankbaits. Glass rods instead of graphite; one of the few applications where I still see bass guys use straight mono. For any of the moving bait/treble hook applications, the general thinking is that a softer setup (glass rod/mono or fluoro rather than braid) is more forgiving on the hookset, helps keep the hook pinned while bringing them to boat instead of ripping it out of their mouth. This is in contrast to, for example, jig or worm fishing, where braid and heavier rods are preferred because a more solid hookset is necessary. Braid is nearly universal among many bass fishermen but crankbaits are one of the exceptions I see to that trend.
So it would seem to apply even more to crappie with their softer mouths, but apparently not? Just wanted to hear someone's opinion on this. Maybe the bass guys have it all wrong :biggrin
Having said all that, last weekend was my first time doing legit crappie fishing in 20 years. Dropping jigs tipped with minnows straight down into stakebeds. I was loving braid to a mono leader for that setting; the increased sensitivity and strike detection was perfect.
Bass guys fish their way and are swayed by the sellers and pros that are sponsored by the rod manufacturers as well as bait manufacturers. Same for crappie fishermen but not as much in my opinion. I’ve been using braid for at least 15 yrs now cranking ever since I read all the Mississippi postings from years ago and have caught thousands of fish since using braid. Any rod will work if that is all you have available. I prefer on my shorter rods any medium action rod be it glass, graphite or carbon. For my longer rods,,love the Southern Pros and they are Kevlar carbon composite and at 10’, 12’, and 14’ they have a soft tip. I hardly loose fish in a hookup but if I get double or triple hookup, I might loose a fish by skimming him across the top of the water to the boat in a hurry to get to the other rods, but even that seldom happens. I think as you catch more fish, you develop your technics in catchIng and landing fish to suit your needs and style of fishing and learn how to not loose fish with the equipment you become accustomed to using. When cranking and trolling jigs at any speed, the hook set is 90% of the time a solid hook set as the fish attacks the bait. Same goes for my grabbing a net. If I bring the fish to the top of the water and see if it’s a weak hooked in the mouth fish as I am reeling the fish in, I will grab the net and ease the fish to the boat and net. Other than that, I don’t waste a lot of time netting crappie but always have the net ready just in case. In using braid, the one thing primary issue I have eliminated for my style of fishing is line stretch In trolling that might be a issue in loosing fish or crankbaits even. One other thing with using braid,,spool 100 yds on,,use it a couple of years,,unwind it laying in the yard and tie the used end of the braid and respool to the reel where the unused line is now you using new braid with the old as backing on the reel. You double the life of using that spool of braid. I also jig fish vertical and casting with braid.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RK1
I think this as well. I was using mono, switched all to braid to keep from loosing as many lures. Then I realized the pain of the braid was not worth it. Tangles were impossible to get out. Wind would wrap it around last eye on a 14ft rod etc....
Then I got to thinking...I troll in some pretty heavy timber stuff sometimes and the most cranks I ever lost n a trip was 3, and i rarely even loose one crank out of multiple trips. Still cheaper than the pound of minnows I usually take on a spider rigging trip every time.
Went back to mono 2 years ago. Aint lost 1 crank since and lost all the braid hassles with it. This is just what I have experienced. No Braid fans on my end lol.