I have just started trying out a new 8-strand braid which I will carry on with and come back with an initial impressions post sometime soon (I really like white braids!). Because I have been fishing for so long with Sufix 131 and now the Berkley Sick X8 braids - amongst a fair few others I might add - I then got to thinking about why specific braids resonate with me so much. For sure price comes into it because Sufix 131 is not at all cheap, but I work with Savage Gear/Pure Fishing and I don’t have to pay for the Berkley Sick X8 braid I so often fish with. Way above my working in fishing though is my obsession with going fishing, and there is no way I am going to choose to fish with any braid - free to me or not - that I don’t like and trust. A lot of our fine fish can be hard enough to catch at the best of times so I am sure as shit not going to put my trust in a mainline I don’t like. I might go out and try different braids fairly regularly, but when it comes to long-term mainlines I need to feel 100% comfortable with what I am fishing with………………

But why do we like certain braids then? I was thinking about this morning on my 10k run which gave me enough time to come to this conclusion - there is nothing remotely scientific or particularly clever about what informs my mainline decisions. I think about this new braid which arrived the other day and for a start it quite simply has to feel right to me from the off. Which it does I might add, and this in turn makes me want to give it a proper go. I accept that it doesn’t make a huge amount of sense, but I need a braid to feel right between my fingers. I can’t quite tell you what that “right” feeling is, but I know that when I run Sufix 131 through my fingers it just feels good. Same with the Berkley Sick X8. Different feelings for sure, but for some unscientific reasons both braids feel good to me before I even put them on a spinning reel.

I remember the lad who helped us out with some bass fishing out in Morocco some years ago now, and he was fishing with what I believe was a YGK PE Upgrade braid or something like that. It felt incredible when you ran it through your fingers and I managed to track a spool of it down when I got home. For some reason though I could not stop the stuff wrapping around my tip during the retrieve I think it was, to the point that I tried other braids on a different spinning reel during the same sessions on the same lure rod and didn’t get any issues. I know it has to have been my fault somehow, but a braid which felt so good just didn’t work out for me at all and I took it off the reel.

Which of course comes back to me obviously accepting that a braid which feels good in my fingers doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to work for me in a real fishing environment. Price has to come into the equation somewhere for sure. That Gosen Answer Casting PE X16 braid smacks of serious quality in the fingers and also when you put lures out on it, but it is seriously not cheap and even if I do end up thinking it’s the best thing since sliced bread - initial impressions post about it here - I am not sure I can justify using this braid and nothing else. Sufix 131 is not cheap either, but I have used it for so long now and I still believe it’s THE best braid I have ever fished with. It has never, ever let me down, and much like the ridiculously strong Sufix 832 you could argue from a business point of view that the Sufix 131 lasts too long. Initially very expensive then, but if it lasts and lasts and lasts?

I reckon I come around to loving a particular braid quite simply because it works for me in all the lure fishing situations I might encounter. It needs to feel good, I need to like the colour(s), lures must go out really well consistently, I don’t want to feel like it’s catching the wind or waves any worse than another braid, and it must take the FG knot to my fluoro leader. I am not sure how much importance I attach to braid as regards abrasion resistance - any tight braids and sharp rocks don’t fare very well - but I do expect a braid I like to last for a good length of time. I am realistic with what a particular mainline on a particular spinning reel has gone through, but for the most part I fully expect to be able to reverse a spool of braid on a reel at the end of a season and for it to feel and perform like new again.

How about you though? We all like different things and it’s perhaps because we all fish subtly differently that I don’t tend to be swayed very much by the mainlines other anglers use. I am obviously very interested in what other anglers are fishing with, and especially if something strikes me as a bit unique or different, but it’ll take a lot for me to come away from the main braids I know and trust and fish with most of the time. I am guessing you are along similar lines here, and please note that this is not an attempt at some lame pun!

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Why do you like a specific braid? Is it purely the price, do you trust it implicitly, does your mate use it etc.?

© Henry Gilbey 2023