The Leading Edge

Hi All,

Time to talk about leaders...no im not talking about the men who run our countries either... but rather the business end of our tackle. More specifically leaders used for lures rather than bait...sorry bait fishos...but get with the program!

The current craze is obviously to fish with flurocarbon. It has so many advantages over mono that it makes sense to use it most of the time. Some of the advantages are;

1) Light Refraction Index - Very wanky terminology for a simple meaning. Basically fluro line has the same light refractive properties as water meaning once the line is submerged it becomes virtually invisible. The benefits are obvious especially if your using pink or green braid.

2) Abrasion Resistence - Some pundits believe mono has better abrasion resistence than fluro. In some brands this may be the case but as a whole i refute this somewhat. I reckon fluro is inheritly stiffer and harder than mono, therfore lends itself better to wear and tear.

3) Aging - Mono has a tendency to brake down over time. My early indications are fluro has a longer shelf life than mono. The colour, although virtually non-existent, doesnt bleach or degrade, or even go milky as some brands of clear mono seem to, like Maxima and Platypus.

Even though Fluro does have its advantages there are some fishing situations where Mono will out-perform Fluro. And there are some upsides to using Mono too, these are;

1) The Price - Mono is much cheaper than Fluro. For the tight arses out there mono makes commercial sense, especially 600m of Jarvis Walker for 4bux! In my opinion the best thing this super cheap line can be used for is backing...on reels that will never see the backing ever. On reels that may catch fish that might empty a spool, i use better quality line.

2) Knots - The one area that i will conceed to mono is in tying knots. The line pulls up better than fluro line. The fact that fluro line is stiffer and harder does hinder the knot tying process. More care needs to be taken to ensure the knots bed down snuggly and lay evenly. The extra stretch in mono has an elastic effect of tying snug knots that pull up even tighter under the load of a fish.


These are the built-in features and benefits of the two leader materials. In fishing situations though the use of one over the other has its place too. Lets see some examples;

1) Mono has a tendency to float. In a fishing situation where you require the light lure to hang high in the water column, such as fishing boat hulls, the mono will aid in keeping the lure bouyant. Fluro has a tendency to sink so in reverse, if you want to fish light lures a bit deeper, which would be the majority of times, Fluro aids the sinking process to get the light lure deeper, quicker.

2) Fishing with Mono leader of hard pulling fish. In situations where braid is used zero stretch in the line can mean more pulled hooks. The use of mono can put a little bit of elasticity in the system pretty much like a shock absorber. There are Fluro lines now made with a stretch factor to cater for this exact issue.

3) With poppers mono aides in keeping the popper on top of the water rather than digging in. As i suggested fluro sinks and therefore can have a negative effect on popper action.

4) 80% of my fishing revolves around deep water cast-and-retrieve. In this scenario Fluro is the way to go.

So in rounding up...there are times to use fluro and times to use mono. Understand the inherit characteristics of each and this will aid in your selection. Don't get caught up using only one type either.

Some of my current favourite lerader are;
Fluro
Sunline Basic FC - in 4-12lb
Sunline Hard Rock - all lines classes
Siglon FC - 10-20lb
Varivas Shock Leader - 20lb

Mono
Platypus Super 100 - 4lb-10lb
Penn 10X Pro Line - 6lb-30lb
Platil Universal - All line classes