With how thin many braids are these days, is there much advantage to going lighter/thinner for the more finesse stuff? (frigging labelling!)

Whatever figures we choose to look at when we buy our braid mainlines - price, #PE ratings, breaking strain, diameter - I am going to guess that most UK and Irish anglers who chase bass and indeed pollack and wrasse on lures are after a mainline that is rated around the 20lb mark for their shore work. We all know it’s almost impossible to rely on the numerous figures which are quoted on packets of braid, but a bit like lemmings we seem to like that mythical 20lb figure…………….

I have seen a few anglers complaining online about the Berkley Sick X8 braid which I really like for some of my open coast fishing especially. We all seem to get different experiences with the different braids we use, but I wonder if that’s because an angler quite rightly goes for a spool of the 24lb Berkley Sick X8 braid - and quite naturally trusts that it’s a mainline which breaks at 24lbs. But I don’t think it is. It might say “Max Break 24lb” on the packet, but I wonder what “Max Break” actually means? I haven’t got to the bottom of it by the way, but to me I think of it as maxing out perhaps the one time at 24lbs on a proper line machine in laboratory settings. I am also guessing that no knots were put into the braid for testing.

So I really like Berkley Sick X8 for the rougher side of open coast fishing especially, but over a lot of fishing time with it I soon went up to the “Max Break 36lb” version for the open coast stuff. I choose to ignore the diameter claims on the packets and I know from using the braid a lot that the 36lb version is strong as hell and plenty thin enough for the sort of lure fishing I am asking of it. But I treat it like say a 25lb mainline. It’s bloody strong on a straight pull to a snagged lure, but it just doesn’t strike me as a true 36lb mainline. Nothing scientific in there, just what I feel about the line after a lot of real fishing time. It’s not the most subtle braid out there, but a 150m spool of the “Max Break 36lb” on something like a Penn Slammer IV 2500 is - for me - a great solution to the rough and tumble of the more hectic side of open coast bass fishing. I then treat the 24lb Berkley Sick X8 more like say a 15lb mainline. Yep, some of the braid labeling is frustrating as hell.

The main braids I have used this year for the creature bait stuff have been the dark green 22lb Sakura Sensibraid 12 braid (review here), bright green Sufix 131 in the 20lb/0.165mm/PE#1, grey Varivas Avani Sea Bass Max Power X8 in the PE#1/Max 20.2lb (recent thoughts here), and the white/purple Varivas Avani Sea Bass Max Power PEX9 in the Max 25lb/PE#1.2. These are all what I think of as bloody good braids, and to me they are perfectly “regular” breaking strains or diameters for any lure fishing for bass I might do - open coast or estuary. I like that added safety factor and slightly less subtle nature of the 36lb (25lb to me as I said) Berkley Sick X8 for the rougher stuff, but all the braids I have been using for the creature bait fishing are more than tough enough to cope with the rougher stuff as well.

And I don’t recall thinking that I should be going lighter/thinner with my estuary braid, but you know how my brain works. One could argue that I don’t really need a roughly 20lb mainline for the more subtle stuff, but would a thinner mainline give me any of the potential advantages, or are these modern 8-strand braids already so thin that any differences would be marginal at best? I have dropped down to a 12lb YGK Nitlon DFC fluorocarbon leader for this kind of bass fishing, but I can’t actually prove that going down this route has produced any more bass for me. I like to think that it probably has in those very calm and clear conditions we had all summer, but there is no concrete proof I can provide yet. I also haven’t once had any cause to regret dropping down to a 12lb/0.305mm leader I might add, and not once has the use of a brightly coloured braid mainline on a quiet estuary mark given me any cause to worry about putting bass off and so on. Food for thought or that little shit on my shoulder bending my ear?

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