On a recent report by Ralph who fished Brenham Bulter Lake he mentioned his line broke a few times causing him to loose fish. It is something that I read often in our fishing reports and thought it might be a great discussion topic for us to learn, based on your experiences. Here are a few of my own opinions and thoughts on the shelf life of fishing line. We could do a deep dive on the different types of fishing line and why you might use one over the other or what lb test line is the best for a particular lure or style of fishing. But lets stick with shelf life for this discussion.

• Mono has the shortest life span. Flourcarbon is in the middle and braid has the longest shelf life
• I store all my line on the reel and extra line in a cool, dry, dark place. A closest inside my house. NOT IN MY GARAGE.
• UV light and heat really take the life out of fishing line.
• I change my Flourocarbon and average of twice a year. I rarely use Mono.  I only change braid when the spool diminishes (from changing out lures) my casting distance. 

If you do some reading on the subject, I read reports of Flourocarbon lasting for 5+ years and mono for several years. However, my experience is that you go that long and you have a whole host of problems, which include memory issues to line becoming brittle. 

I could do a much longer post, but want to get others experiences. 

Thanks Steve.  I was using a BerkelyTrilene( XL Smooth casting), which I believe is mono. The line was about 7 months old and stored in the gargage.  I may switch to a Flourocarbon line as you suggest. I fish in a Native Titan Propel 10.5 kayak.  It is conceivable that I somehow nicked the line on the pedel drive which extends beneath the kayak. The fish I lost were good fighters, going under the kayak for a period of time as I tried to reel them in. But that is just a somewhat wild guess on my part.  More than likely, it was the fishing line.  And keeping a net readily accessible would also be a good idea.

1. Backing your baitcasters with 65lb braid 2/3rds and the rest with your line of choice allows you to restring more often without worrying about cost as much – I restring constantly but use less on average this way with the confidence of knowing I have a fresh spool. 

2. I keep mine stored in the garage but have an insulated door and my stuff is near the front of the garage with no exposure to sunlight. 

3. My line failures are almost always from me being lazy and not just retying/checking the 2-3 feet of line above my lure.  I haven’t lost a fish on a hookset since I let a guide tie a non-palomar knot at El Salto.  I do some really dumb boat flips from time to time (see lazy above). 

4. Line conditioner and threading the line through your index finger/thumb on your first cast goes a long way with flouro memory.

5. Condoms and fishing line tend to have the same rules when it comes to effectiveness over time. 

I use mono or braid. My mono spools are stored in the house. Mono is cheap so I re-spole often. I also am a constanty retying my line to the lure. I use a uni knot have no problems with line breakage. Also use a little heavier line test than on public waters because of big fish potential. 

There is an old discussion item about type of line that is interesting.

I have some thoughts on some causes of why your lines will break as I have experienced it before my selfies.

I was breaking off on the hook set away from the hook in other words I only had a short piece of line left, turns out i have ceramic inserts in my line guides on most of my rods and on one of them about midway on the rod the insert was fractured which made a razor sharp cutting edge. So upon hook sets the line came in contact with the sharp edge and SNAP! This happend with 65 lb braid and 20 lb Tatsu. Test your line guides with a cotton q-tip by rubbing the inserts, if the cotton snags on the insert then you need to have the line guide replaced. I also try to stay away from rods with the ceramic inserts in the line guides.

I was breaking off on the hook set at the hook and thought it was my knot. I use a 7’9” Mojo Rod on my plastics in deep water and had numerous breakoffs at the hook on the set i realized that the power extended on a hook set to the rod tip on a rod that size is a lot more then you have with a 6-7 ft lighter rod and I had my drag set to tight. Once i loosened my drag a little i had better hooks up less breaks at the hook. Once your hooked up go ahead and tighten the drag back up to land the fish just remember to loosen up again for the next hook set.

One last thought on the subject for those who use Flourocarbon in particular, be sure clear any loops out on the spool after a cast. Once you start reeling up over a loop on your spool it will cause a kink that will break eventually on a long cast and there goes your favorite cricket. That can happen on the co-polomars and maybe all lines except braid perhaps. 

Storage and refreshing your spools and knots are important but not always the cause of chronic line breaks. Hope this helps somebody.

Originally Posted by Ron Dupree

I have some thoughts on some causes of why your lines will break as I have experienced it before my selfies.

I was breaking off on the hook set away from the hook in other words I only had a short piece of line left, turns out i have ceramic inserts in my line guides on most of my rods and on one of them about midway on the rod the insert was fractured which made a razor sharp cutting edge. So upon hook sets the line came in contact with the sharp edge and SNAP! This happend with 65 lb braid and 20 lb Tatsu. Test your line guides with a cotton q-tip by rubbing the inserts, if the cotton snags on the insert then you need to have the line guide replaced. I also try to stay away from rods with the ceramic inserts in the line guides.

I was breaking off on the hook set at the hook and thought it was my knot. I use a 7’9” Mojo Rod on my plastics in deep water and had numerous breakoffs at the hook on the set i realized that the power extended on a hook set to the rod tip on a rod that size is a lot more then you have with a 6-7 ft lighter rod and I had my drag set to tight. Once i loosened my drag a little i had better hooks up less breaks at the hook. Once your hooked up go ahead and tighten the drag back up to land the fish just remember to loosen up again for the next hook set.

One last thought on the subject for those who use Flourocarbon in particular, be sure clear any loops out on the spool after a cast. Once you start reeling up over a loop on your spool it will cause a kink that will break eventually on a long cast and there goes your favorite cricket. That can happen on the co-polomars and maybe all lines except braid perhaps. 

Storage and refreshing your spools and knots are important but not always the cause of chronic line breaks. Hope this helps somebody.

Great advice on ceramic inserts with edges. 

I use braided line with a flurocarbon leader for all of my fishing.  I change out the braid every year and I change out the leader every other trip or more often as needed.  I have tried other combinations of line and other change-out frequencies but I always come back to this policy.

I would concur with Joshua about retying.  Several years ago, I read something that KVD said and it stuck.  Two things that change the game: testing & sharpening your hooks, and testing your line for any nick or abrasion and retying regularly.  It takes seconds, but those two things brought my landing ratio up significantly.  

The other thing I started doing was ordering large spools of InvizX fluorocarbon line.   It was SO much cheaper for respooling and I didn’t waste line from the smaller spools. I think most of us have a favorite line brand and size, but spending more up front on bigger spools can cut cost as much as 30%.  Backing on the spool helps, but that change to larger spools cut my cost significantly.  

I respool before spring and before fall each year.  Line memory and loss of full-spool status after reties necessitates respooling more often.  

If I taake line off a reel, I replace it with line from another reel. Most of the line hasn’t ever been used and the tie on end you had is now at the bottom of the spool. I use 20 and 25lb AbrazX mostly and I don’t want to spend that much to fully replace five reels. Berkley Vanish is super tough though and cheap, so for conventional tackle you can swap it pain free. No reason to miss a fish of a lifetime or, worse, leave fish tangled if we can avoid it.

I keep all my line in a refrigerator. I buy most of it in ¼ lb. spools. I use mono copolymer, braid and some fluoro as leaders. 

Most of the time I change mono line as it diminishes. I only replace the top 40 yards or so.

I re-tie if fishing heavy cover OR if I’ve caught a big fish. I re-tie more often if I’m fishing a treasured lure. Some of mine aren’t made any longer.

ON ANOTHER NOTE – I carry a small Arkansas stone to re-sharpen hooks as needed. A hook can get very dull after eight or ten fish which will lead to bad things happening. 

Do you resharpen hooks frequently?