The line on catching (and losing) big bass

By By Otha Barham / outdoors editor
June 4, 2004
When you wheedle a trophy-size bass into grabbing your lure, the odds are that you will land the monster, photograph it, weigh it and return it to the water, or take it to the taxidermist. This has not always been true. In earlier times, the odds were in favor of the fish breaking off and breaking your heart.
I cannot prove either of these postulations, but it would take a doozy of a national study to disprove them.
Recently I was looking over an article I wrote many years ago about the big ones getting away, which they often did, especially in my case. I wrote, accurately I believe, that the number one cause of losing the cherished trophies was a broken line. The reasons for one's line breaking were several, and were the nuts and bolts of the article.
I chuckled at my story because it dated me. Most of the problems with broken lines have been fixed by the myriad of tackle manufacturers, who make gobs of money selling anglers fishing tools that catch fish, with precious few broken lines to make us unhappy.
Today's fishing lines, to use a worn out line (pun intended), are something else. More research and development effort may have been spent producing modern fishing lines than was devoted to the first moon voyage. Well, a lot anyway.
Miracle mono
When I started bass fishing, just after the dinosaurs disappeared, we had recently graduated from black braided line to monofilament. Here is what we got for our money.
The stuff would stretch when you tried to set the hook and the hooks would be only half embedded, especially in the tough jaws of old Mossback. Half way through the battle, the behemoth would rise to the surface and spit the Lucky 13 back at you.
Or when you struck hard, the big guy's rough mouth would score the line deeply and seal its fate preparing it quite adequately to snap at the fish's next dive. Or, again at the strike, the yank would tighten your knot so much that it would squeeze itself to death, pinching its test rating in half to ensure its breaking at the first hard pull.
Today's lines eliminate those problems. You can get a 50-pound test line that is so small that you can barely see it, and that won't stretch over a millimeter per hundred yards and that can't be frayed by a rusty file or an alligator's teeth.
We have monofilament lines with measured stretch and braided lines not much larger than sewing thread. We have copolymer lines and fluorocarbon lines and silicone relaxed lines. Manufacturers furnish lines coated with silicone that are so slick that a gnat can't hold onto them.
Rocket science
One company "thermofuses silicone molecules" into their monofilament line so that it zips through the water faster than a speeding bullet. Another company says their line "precisely matches the light refraction of water." If I knew what that meant I'll bet it would make me deliriously happy.
One popular line maker claims that their braided line is made from the strongest fiber in the world, something called Micro Dyneema. Another company sells a camouflaged line. Yes, the line is colored in brown, green, yellow and blue in evenly spaced segments, so that when it is wound onto your reel you see all its colors overlapping.
My brain has grown tired trying to figure out what prompted these folks to make a camouflaged line with colors common to leaves, pine straw, broom grass and the morning sky. I suppose you could use replaced line to sew up rips in your camo pants.
A favorite "High Shock" casting line is also advertised as having "high tensile strength," being so strong that there is a statement on the box that says it is "up to 80 percent stronger than (its) label rating." Now that is really something when a product exceeds its own claimed attribute by 80 percent. Wow!
With all these modern fishing lines that can double as anchor lines or tow ropes, big bass have to find another way to get away from today's anglers. So don't come around telling me your sad story of a lost trophy because your line broke. It ain't possible. Hooks will straighten and swivels will crack. But a bass just can't break a line that can tow a barge.