Hey guys
Ive been lurking for a while, and wanted to say this site is a wealth of knowledge. I have a dawia 900h and a international 80 that i need to spool up. What would your recomendations for line be? Ive been reading about a lot of guys going straight mono. Just worried about capacity. Any suggestions would be great!
Thanks
Bull buster braid backing with bull buster mono top shot.
Is cost an issue? Braid can get expensive. I just dropped $400 loading a mile of 200lb JB on a 130!
And a few weeks ago I also spooled up a Tiagra 80W. I almost posted a thread on the subject.
Here's my experience, hopefully it helps.
First of all, the line capacities that the manufactures list on their reels are usually not right and sometimes they are way off. I know some line thickness can vary a little from brand to brand, and you can spool line extra tight but it doesn't make that big a difference.
Shimano's specs for the 80W say 950yds of 80lb mono or 2400yds (interpolating here) of 130lb braid. It came from BassPro loaded with 100lb mono and it had 800yds. That's close I suppose but I wanted 130lb braid instead. I didn't need 2400yds and I wanted to save some money so I got some 130lb dacron backing. I decided I wanted about 1700yds of line. (That's probably too much but that's the number I was shooting for.) So the question was how much backing to use?
Based on the above info I guessed 300yds of backing and 100yds of 150lb mono topshot. Most people use less lb and more yds, but hey I'm a newbie; I'm still learning:) But I only got 700yds of the 130 braid on. I was short 500yds!
I'm not too upset because I don't think I need 1700yds of line. And I can use the 500yds on another reel.
But it does bug me that they can't put accurate specs on their reels. It makes it so much more difficult. I'm sure others have had similar questions and problems that come up for example if they only have a partial spool of line they want to use?
Ok I'm done ranting:) Hope this helps a little.
Also, if you go with braid, get hollow core and have it spliced. You won't be able to use as heavy a topshot. But the splice will be stronger than a knot.
I originally went with 150lb mono on top because I couldn't bring myself to use a weaker mono than my braid. But 150lb won't fit into the hollow core and so I had the tackle shop tie a knot.
I ran a test with my friend to test everything, crimps, swivels, line, knots, rod, reel and harness. He's a 240lb guy and so I had him tie a rope from him to my hook and run down the beach. I was using an Avet 50 EX and a 130lb rod. We had a bet to see if I would be able to stop him. I wanted to see what would be the first thing to fail.
It turns out it was the knot. It failed when it went through the guides. (No rollers.) I was probably at 50 to 57lbs of drag and nowhere near the 130lb or 150lb of the lines. I'm sure it wouldn't have broken had it not gone through the eyes, but still I think this is the weak link.
Next time I am using 200lb hc and 150lb top:) BTW, I don't think my friend was going to get even close to the bottom of the reel:) He was leaning forward and sweating at just 100yds!
I splice 1.6mm mono into JB hollow 200 LB. it can be done easily with the correct splicing needle. It took the guys at the shop 30 minutes to splice in less than a foot. I splice in like 12 feet or some whack amount like that.
The trick is to get the smaller needle and then shave down the mono with an exacto knife to fit in the needle. then splice it up.
I use LP 250 LB which is the same 1.6mm diameter as other 200lb lines.
Thanks for all the great feed back! It greatly helps