BassKat

I love February for big bass in MS, but we often have water in the 55-60+ range. For me, warm winds are a big key in February. On 2/8-9, we had muddy water with 20mph warm winds and slayed them on spinnerbaits. We started out fishing mid-lake points and points at the mouths of creek arms, nothing. As we moved up the creeks, the bite picked up with the apex surprisingly occurring in shallow water in the 2-3' range. We also caught them on small shallow mainlake flats close to deep water. When the warm winds are howling, get on the water. Btw, although sizes were generally small with this pattern, my buddy caught an 8-15 on a small shallow flat near the deepest water in the lake.

If it was a clear lake that somehow became consistently dirty (land clearing / dirtwork, etc), that could kill a jerkbait bite. Rising fishing pressure with more people all throwing the same lures could play in, fishing on days with no wind, disadvantageous moon phases, high pressure when fish are tight to cover. But given you experienced that big of a fall-off, fish kill in the lake?

@Munkin Dude went back in to lower the price, saw his rising view count compliments of your link, and decided he was good!

Or a creme worm.

My brother had a Keeshond that was really cool. Pets just add so much to life.

I've broken off, caught the fish, and retrieved my lost lure in its mouth. Always dinks!

What a rewarding and admirable endeavor! Great work A-Jay! Food for thought for my soon-to-be empty nesting days!

I enjoy politics and have a unique blend of political and economic theories. Promoting local small businesses. Fighting against anti-small-business corporate initiatives. Realizing as many crimes are committed with ink pens as with weapons. Realizing the importance of agreeing to disagree. On my best days, teaching kids that if they are honest, trustworthy, work as hard for others as they would themselves, and truly care about others, they will be blessed and successful in life. My biggest hobby is applying junk science to fishing.

If the UG is too stiff, I may try Big Game again. I know it's a fine line because I used it exclusively for years, but switched from Big Game to Sensation and never went back. I currently use Sensation along with Sufix Advance, which I have "in testing" with pretty decent results. Neither are comparable to Armilo, but nothing has seemed to be. I appreciate the thinking that more material yields better abrasion resistance, especially in certain situations. It's just that Armilo changed my perception and thinking about everything. My catch rate skyrocketed with those smaller diameters, and like I said, that was in dingy water. I lived in Montana three years and have a fly fishing background, so I was predisposed to assign my spike in catches with Armilo to its incredibly small diameters. It was the line I'd been looking for all my life. Ultimately, there may not be a close enough substitute for me. @WRB Tom, how would you compare Ultragreen's stiffness/coiliness to Armilo's? Armilo walked the fine line perfectly, but given the you use UG 5lb for finesse, I'm hoping it's not too much stiffer. Again, I've ordered the 8lb hoping to treat as 12, so I'm not getting a thick UG.

I agree. Small diameter-per-strength lines with remarkable abrasion resistance like Armilo are incredibly rare. I believe the reason manufacturers intentionally understate strength is because they need a thicker line to deliver the abrasion resistance they want for the particular pound test. If Ultragreen's 8lb displays similar variances to those uncovered in the TT's examination of the 10lb, the 8lb should actually be an incredibly thin and abrasion-resistant 12lb line. What's more, at such as small diameter, the stiffness of the line starts to matter a lot less to me. Some of those who've noted UG is a bit stiff may have done so thinking they were testing a 12lb line that was likely an 18! As we know, that stiffness delivers sensitivity and abrasion resistance. I must seek the best of both worlds because I won't tolerate too much coiling or stiffness due to losing distance and especially accuracy. Armilo was having it all!

Thanks, Tom! I don't fish a lot until the temps get into the 50s. UG's strength-per-diameter and abrasion-resistance remind me of Armilo's. I must find a new fairly affordable line that allows me to fish recklessly, often throwing weedless lures like frogs and spinnerbaits into places such as across multiple floating logs in a log jam where I can't even go in for a big fish. With Armilo, I became adept at reeling the fish quickly "to the sky" to skip bass over logs, etc. Obviously, I hook a lot of fish and lose a lot of fish. I no more want to stop doing this than stop fishing topwater.

@little giant Thanks for the tip! Will check them out.

As an example. On TT's reviews, Armilo lasted 7.7 abrasion revolutions vs Ultragreen's 11.7, so I have UG on the way for testing. Ultragreen advertises their 10lb test as having a diameter of .012. However, TT's test showed the line actually had a 15lb tensile strength with a diameter of .01397, meaning diameter was underreported by 16.4%, and strength was underreported by 50%. Assuming there's some measure of uniformity in the variations between test strengths/diameters, I have ordered 8lb Ultragreen, which I hope to have a tensile strength of 12lbs, diameter of .0116", and knot-strength around 8.64lbs. To compare apples, I have to order 8lb UG to get what I hope is 12lb. If their 8lb doesn't perform as 12lb with excellent abrasion resistance, my search to replace Armilo will continue. YZH 10lb inbounds as well to treat as 12lb due to similar analysis.

As it relates, when I switched to the now-unavailable Defier Armilo, it enabled me to fish 11lb test that, because of its unreal abrasion resistance, I treated like 15. At just .0108", my catch rate skyrocketed. Importantly, I fish mostly Mississippi river deltas that stay muddy, heavily stained, or experience big plankton blooms that would seemingly suggest a larger line diameter could be easily tolerated, yet the ultra-thin Armilo made a huge impact for me in so many ways. Diameter is a big deal in my book. I rarely exceed .012" and rely on braid for punching and frogging (except open water) because of this.

On a lot of lines, there are tests available by folks at TT, Saltstrong, etc showing tensile and knot-strength findings. Some FC lines, on average, tend to lag mono/copoly on knot strength and some report this as consideration with FC. For example, if a copoly you're considering has 89% knot strength and a FC you're considering has 76%, this could cause the need to bump up a line size on some FCs to compare apples. Not saying this is an issue with all FC. I had no problems with Tatsu and like Sniper as a "budget" option. FC can absolutely be money whipped into shape and it's the only factor that keeps me away from FC for bottom contact at a minimum.

@Hogs_n_Logs your point is so big in evaluating FC, coupled with many FCs requiring upsizing to compensate for knot-strength issues thereby making it more visible or more able to be felt by lateral line. Not hating on FC because if I could afford Tatsu, it would be in my lineup.

@A-Jay This is an incredible thread. I agree clear water may be the prime contributor to slower action during full moons. I fish mostly dingy water and have great action on full moons. Because my vision has always been pretty bad, during new moons, I frequent mowed shorelines and docks.

Thanks for the clarification, Team9nine!

For what it may be worth (probably not a ton), I researched line release dates for some chronological appreciation. - Big Game (1959) > P-Line Original, CX, & Fluoroclear (1982) > Sensation (1998) > Ultragreen (2008) > Yo-Zuri Hybrid, Izorline Platinum, Gamma Polyflex, & P-Line CXX (2010-2011) > *Izorline XXX (???, after Platinum) > Sufix Advance (2018) Importantly, McCoy has been around since the 30s, but certainly constructed Mean Green as a copoly at a much later date I could not find. Since 2008, based only on my reading (no personal experience), it seems Ultragreen, CXX, & Platinum fill the slightly stiffer, a touch more sensitive, a touch more abrasive resistant, a touch more memory category. And Yo-Zuri Hybrid and Izorline XXX strike a balance, while Mean Green, Gamma Polyflex, and Suffix Advance lean toward more manageability with perhaps a little less abrasion resistance.

For your input, here's my round-one plan. In reading about Ultragreen, YZH, and P-Line Original, it seems that, because Ultragreen is reportedly a little stiffer and more expensive, I'm going to try it on my heavy-cover jig rod. Between YZH and P-Line Original, it seems P-Line Original is a little more supple than the other two, so I'm going to try it for medium-action power finesse applications. Then, because YZH sounds like such a great all-purpose line, I'm going to try it on an application or two falling in between. I think all three of these lines will be plenty sensitive given the rods I fish, so I'm mostly trying to evaluate these (and other lines) pursuing above-average abrasion resistance while maintaining castability (lack of excessive memory) as it relates to both distance and accuracy. CXX is on my radar too (as well as others that have been mentioned), but I'm concerned CXX, and perhaps Ultragreen too, may be a little too stiff and memory intensive for me. If any of you have experience with 2 or more of these lines, please weigh in on my thoughts/plans. I'll be reporting on round one after prespawn. Thanks!

Yes, on the 10lb test, TT reported an average tensile strength of 13.4lbs vs IGFA's 16.5. Like the questionable abrasion test results, I chalk it up to variances with lower priced lines. The good news is the candidates test good to great depending on the batch I guess.

Since a lot of people recommend YZH and Ultragreen and TT ran tests on them, I ran some analysis using TT's findings while making the assumption that the manufacturer's tendency to understate strength and underreport diameter would be uniform enough between offerings to determine which line-tests are most comparable between brands and draw some possible inferences about how the products compare. TT's findings on 10lb Ultragreen would indicate that Ultragreens 8lb offering is actually .0116" with 12lb tensile strengh and knot strength of 8.64lbs. Although both were good on stretch (lack of) / sensitivity, Ultragreen had about a 20% edge over YZH. On abrasion resistance, where I place a high premium, Ultragreen had a substantial 85.7% advantage over YZH, which I don't trust. The guys at TT reported having much better on-water experiences, and too many of you have reported the same. There's no doubt that these less expensive lines have bad batches and bad sections, and I think that's at play here. To compare apples with Ultragreen v YZH, it's UG 8lb detailed above vs YZH 10lb, which is listed by Yo-Zuri and confirmed by TT as .012", with a 13.4lb tensile strength and knot strength of 8.71lbs. The two offerings' knot strengths being so close is why I plan to test 8lb Ultragreen v. 10lb YZH as roughly equal offerings. Before leaving TT, I looked at other copoly/mono reviews; the testing of Super Natural seemed to validate my thoughts that it's a fine open water line, but maybe not the best for tangling with heavy cover as I always do. Where things got interesting was TT had a review on the original P-Line. Surprisingly, adjusted according to the percentage variances experienced by TT on the 12-lb, the 6lb-rated test advertised at .0084", but projected at .0089 with a projected tensile strength of 9.54 and knot strength of 8.34lbs ALMOST could compare to the lines above. The P-Line original 8lb, following the same logic, is advertised at .00949" but would actually be .0101" with a projected tensile strength of 12.72lbs and knot strength of 11.12. This is a line that is 15-19% smaller than the chosen Ultragreen and YZH lines above, with seemingly 27-28% more strength. On stretch/sensitivity, it falls right between YZH and UG (all three are good), and the abrasion resistance tested very good at about 77% of Ultragreen's really impressive abrasion resistance. So my next question is does anyone have any experience with P-Line Original?

Team9nine, thanks for your input on Fluorclear. Based on what I'm seeing, it's probably important to note that TT's good Fluorclear review seems to predate their employment of an abrasion tester! I'll pull the plug and move toward testing based on the great feedback here.

Thanks, FishTank, that's an absolutely relevant additional factor. However, I very regularly fish incoming storms and throw baitcasters in sustained 30-35+mph winds with even higher gusts. This leads to a good number of overuns and I lose confidence in fluorocarbon afterward. I also opt for bank fishing in storms which leads to losing a lot of lures and line. Even if I'm in a boat, I fearlessly fish structure so there's a constant loss of some amount of line going on.

I'm the OP and it's appropriate fluorocarbon is included in the feedback. For me, because I do not fish clear water, FC visibility advantages are moot, especially when it may be prudent to upsize FC's diameter to compensate for FC's knot-strength issues. Then, because of tests that have been performed by TT and others, it appears the line-stretch of average FCs versus copolys is not a clear advantage, especially when the deformity (lack of copoly-like rebound) that plagues FC is baked in. From a sensitivity perspective, because FC does stretch, I deduce that it's sensitivity advantages may come mostly from its "stiffness" versus copoly. To me, that's an expensive trade off because line manageability leads to casting accuracy. If I can consistently hit limb-trunk intersections and other precise targets with a better casting line and am getting more bites even though I may be missing a few extremely light bites, am I really better off with the stiffer line? This relates to the art of fishing a bit for me. A big plus for FC for me may be abrasion resistance. Most, important of all for me is price. Based on my studies of FC lines, I tried and really like Tatsu and I think that would be my choice of FC, but I just cannot afford Tatsu. I use Sniper on my jig rod and do like it. The more I've tried FC versus copolys, the more I've realized I need to heavily investigate the very best affordable copoly available due to my outlook on these variables. For me, it is all about finding the copoly that gives me the lowest stretch and very best abrasion resistance without too negatively impacting my accuracy due to its stiffness level.