Is 8 pound mono for crappie ok?

What do you all think about using 8 pound Berkley Trilene XL mono for crappie fishing? I have a nice rod I’d like to use for this, it is a 6’6” St. Croix Premier medium light spinning rod, with a fast tip. It has a Daiwa Exceler LT 2500D-XH reel on it with 8 pound mono. I set it up for light crankbait fishing for bass but I think it would be good for crappie too. I’d like to keep the 8 pound line so I can go back to bass fishing with it too. Is there any specific reason to need to go down to 6 pound or 4 pound line?


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It will work, all personal preference. If not using braid I'd use floro.

No sir here all I use is 8lb Stren mono

I started with 8# mono (60+yrs ago) ... went to 4# several decades ago, and in the last decade or so I've gone back up to 6# test. They've all worked just fine over all those years. I'm sure the diameters have gone down over the years & the #test is probably higher than the rating says. Trilene XL was one of those lines I've used in the past, and always liked it.

Keep the 8# line stretched out to remove coils & drag the empty line thru the grass to remove twists .... prior to using it after a long period of not using it, and it should cast just fine. :twocents

My preferred mono is 8#. Works just fine for me.

8# is fine, used it a lot in my day. Right now I'm using 8# braid with 6# mono leader. But 8# mono is just fine...

6# works good but I think 8# has a little less stretch in it :dono could be the brands I used or just in my head…..lol

It really depends on what size lures your fishing with. Throwing a 1/32 oz jig head will cost you distance with 8lb line. I only use 8lb line when fishing heavy cover. You could always buy a additional spool for your spinning reel so that you can change lines at a moments notice.

8# mono will cost you distance and action on light weight crappie jigs. It also will float more and cause the jig to pendulum back more if your trying to hold a particular depth

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Use what ever works best for you, your style of fishing and the conditions you fish

8 is great with 1/16 and up jigs , plus break offs are lots less likely and if you use a soft hook it might even bend out a bit after you hang it up on "not a crappie" items and come back to ya ....

I had some trouble with the 8 pound line today that I don’t fully understand. I had a 1/16 oz. jighead with a 1” grub tied on. Had a similar sized splitshot crimped on about a foot above that. Had the line running through a 1” foam slip float (just a plastic tube through a foam float, with no brass tip) with an 8mm bead on above that, and I had used some 12 pound line to make a bobber stop knot onto the 8 pound line above the bead (that was a trick I learned reading on this site).

I could release the whole rig in the water right beside the boat and the jig would sink like a rock and pull line through the float all the way until the bead hit the knot. But when I casted it about 25-30 feet away I could not often get the line to slip through the float. Sometimes it did, and I could always tell when it had by watching the bead come to a stop on top of the float. More often than not though, the bead was on slack line near the float but not on top of it, and no line was being pulled out at all. It seemed like the jig and weight weren’t enough to pull it. I felt like I should have had enough weight to do that but it seemed to have too much friction to allow it once the line got wet. I came to that conclusion by holding the line between both hands and making the float slide back and forth. It didn’t seem to move as freely as it had when the line was dry.

Any thoughts on this? I wondered if 6 pound line would have slipped through better, being a narrower diameter. Or maybe I just didn’t have enough weight on. The float body was submerged to above half way under so I don’t think it was too buoyant.

I recommend any brand on sale at Walmart. 6-10 #.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by The Rooster

I had some trouble with the 8 pound line today that I don’t fully understand. I had a 1/16 oz. jighead with a 1” grub tied on. Had a similar sized splitshot crimped on about a foot above that. Had the line running through a 1” foam slip float (just a plastic tube through a foam float, with no brass tip) with an 8mm bead on above that, and I had used some 12 pound line to make a bobber stop knot onto the 8 pound line above the bead (that was a trick I learned reading on this site).

I could release the whole rig in the water right beside the boat and the jig would sink like a rock and pull line through the float all the way until the bead hit the knot. But when I casted it about 25-30 feet away I could not often get the line to slip through the float. Sometimes it did, and I could always tell when it had by watching the bead come to a stop on top of the float. More often than not though, the bead was on slack line near the float but not on top of it, and no line was being pulled out at all. It seemed like the jig and weight weren’t enough to pull it. I felt like I should have had enough weight to do that but it seemed to have too much friction to allow it once the line got wet. I came to that conclusion by holding the line between both hands and making the float slide back and forth. It didn’t seem to move as freely as it had when the line was dry.

Any thoughts on this? I wondered if 6 pound line would have slipped through better, being a narrower diameter. Or maybe I just didn’t have enough weight on. The float body was submerged to above half way under so I don’t think it was too buoyant.

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I think the "friction" (water's surface tension) was, as you say, the main culprit. But, it could also have been that the float was too small for the weight of the jig/sinker, seeing as how the float was being pulled under past the center of it. You might want to try a slightly larger float with the same size jig & sinker to see if that corrects the problem.

Hey Rooster,

Sounds like your line is catching somewhere??
Are you using those Comal floats you posted in another thread? If you are using 1/16th oz jig and also similar added weight split shot, there shouldn’t be a problem with your setup.

I sometimes use a 2” inch Comal float with a 1/16oz. Jig, works great.

Good luck [emoji106]


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I will try again tomorrow. I wasn’t using any of the floats I bought, I was using one I already had (think I found it actually) because I had already tied it on before I bought the new ones. The boat was being blown around in the wind and it was cold, my wife was miserable and I wasn’t enjoying myself either, so I gave up after only an hour. Tomorrow I will try from the bank and see what happens. I’ll try several combinations of weight and floats. Thank you all for the replies.

FLOAT HAVE END INSERTS ?LINE WILL DIG INTO STYRAFOAM .

I have several different lines on my poles. I have 12 lb Hi-Vis Flouro on my 16 foot K-Rod. But my favorite line rod combo is my 14 foot Huckabee rod with 8 Lb Hi-Vis mono.

In the spring I like 8-10 pound mono because I am usually fishing in thick brush, bass are always lurking and I may break from crappie fishing to catfish. This year I spooled on of my rods up with Stren Hiv vis 10 pound test. For ten pound test this is pretty thick stuff. It is also pretty limp. Nor did it like to hold the bobber stop knot as it would slip when going through the guides, extremely annoying. It also shortened casting distance a lot. So I went back to my old favorite Trilene Big Game 8# test. The difference in diameter was so great that at 6 feet you could easily tell the Stren was much thicker. That said I go back and forth between 6# and 8# Trilene Big Game.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pescador

Hey Rooster,

Sounds like your line is catching somewhere??
Are you using those Comal floats you posted in another thread? If you are using 1/16th oz jig and also similar added weight split shot, there shouldn’t be a problem with your setup.

I sometimes use a 2” inch Comal float with a 1/16oz. Jig, works great.

Good luck [emoji106]


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I tried again today and used one of the small Comal floats. Also tried one of the Thill slip/spring floats that was marked 1/16. I tried it with just a 1/16 jighead and grub by itself, and also paired with a splitshot of similar size. In all cases the line only slipped through the float a few times. Most times it would not slip at all. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. Could the line have some twist that would affect it? It is last year’s line and there is some twist in it, but not terrible. It was also pretty windy out today so maybe the wind and water chop kept the line from being pulled through? I don’t think that I had too light of a weight on. With the splitshot it would have been closer to 1/8, and the float marked 1/16 was mostly below water, only the stem and a small part of the body was showing. The line still wouldn’t flow through it. I could see my jig a few inches below the float and the stop knot was way up above it on the line.

Also, I found out the tube on the Comal float is 2 piece. I had thought it was just one piece when I bought them. Kinda wish it was. I guess that is to allow the float to be pegged on the line?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by The Rooster

I tried again today and used one of the small Comal floats. Also tried one of the Thill slip/spring floats that was marked 1/16. I tried it with just a 1/16 jighead and grub by itself, and also paired with a splitshot of similar size. In all cases the line only slipped through the float a few times. Most times it would not slip at all. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. Could the line have some twist that would affect it? It is last year’s line and there is some twist in it, but not terrible. It was also pretty windy out today so maybe the wind and water chop kept the line from being pulled through? I don’t think that I had too light of a weight on. With the splitshot it would have been closer to 1/8, and the float marked 1/16 was mostly below water, only the stem and a small part of the body was showing. The line still wouldn’t flow through it. I could see my jig a few inches below the float and the stop knot was way up above it on the line.

Also, I found out the tube on the Comal float is 2 piece. I had thought it was just one piece when I bought them. Kinda wish it was. I guess that is to allow the float to be pegged on the line?

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I use 16 pnd braid but it is like 6 pnd diameter. I fish in Lilly pads a lot and find that it takes alot of abuse.. plus there is always the chance of a big bass.


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Get yourself a bucket and fill it with water. You can then experiment with setups to find the perfect one. I do it all the time when I am trying to figure out what floats work best with the jig size I am using. You can really fine tune your set up with this method.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Grainraiser

Get yourself a bucket and fill it with water. You can then experiment with setups to find the perfect one. I do it all the time when I am trying to figure out what floats work best with the jig size I am using. You can really fine tune your set up with this method.

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Wouldn’t that be similar to just trying them out right beside the boat when on the water? When I do that it sinks like a rock and pulls line through easily. It’s when I cast it out that it won’t let line slip through.

There's times won't don't come to rest. I flip it and jiggle it till it slides through

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I did that. I figure it was just the wind being too strong. I should have tried some larger floats and heavier weights to see but I was trying to assist my wife fishing also so I didn’t do everything I could have. Next weekend I’ll try again and in the meantime I’ll spool on some new line.

6lb hi vis stren for slip bobber fishing.

I use 8 lb mono for cover, 6 lb open water.


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