I do a lot of river smallmouth fishing in a shallow and extremely rocky river and the rocks slice braid up and I hate fluorocarbon plus it sinks and makes for a tough to work a jig in a drift. Anyway, because of those thing we use mono, and for a long time I liked Silver Thread AN40 but I do try different line now and again and I saw a local tackle shop had the Berkley Trilene XL Armor Coated for sale in the 6lb test I was needing so I decided to try 2 spools, 1 in low-vis green and the other clear. Well after a dozen trips so far I can say without regret that at the 6lb mark it is one of the best lines I ever used. I use XT in 8lb for flukes and tubes and Big Game and Triple Fish on my casting set ups in 12lb to 17lb but the 6lb was so good I'm going to give 8lb a shot next. To fish the river you need good abrasion resistance, that is the most important with strength coming in a close second and I never got the XL for river fishing as it is very limp but it doesn't have the abrasion resistance needed for the river but the XL Armor coated was said to be manageable just like normal XL but have even better abrasion resistance than XT. Well the first thing I noticed after a few casts with a 1/16oz jig head with a 3" *** worm on the line was that it did indeed allow for some great distance, noticeable difference from the previous line I had on. On my 3rd trip with the line I realized that I wasn't developing loops and the line wasn't twisting really bad, this was due to the fact the line memory is just about zero, even a week in between trips and the line doesn't come off the spool in loops, that is really nice. Well the line handles good and no tangles or spool memory but what about strength? Well it has it in spades along with the abrasion resistance, not once did I have a fish break off and there were plenty of times that I think they should have either got off or broke me off. The last 2 trips we've been finding the bigger fish in slow current with large grass beds everywhere, you either fish topwater or fish the small pockets that are like a 10' diameter hole in the grass. I was wondering if I should even try to throw that light line in a pocket but I was testing it out so I dropped a finesse worm on a 1/16oz jig head into the pocket and it got hit immediately, and the fish took drag and ran into the heart of not one or two but four big patches of heavy grass, it iwas so thick it clogged the jet motor that is on the boat. After a 5 minute fight of pulling the smallmouth out of that grass I landed a solid 15.5" smallmouth that just tipped the scale at 2lbs, not big but solid, but I wasn't done, I repeated this pattern for the remainder of the day and last week was the same deal. With all the fish I caught and no break offs and being very manageable I would say the line is pretty good, but just the amount of grass I was pulling solid fish from along with a 19" 3lb 4oz pig , I have to tell you that I'm really sold on the line, well at least the 6lb test. If the 8lb performs as well as the 6lb I may just use it for all my stuff, I even went a full day without retying after I caught fish in cover which I normally do, and not a single failure. I never bother doing a review on line but this stuff made me, it really is that good for mono, heck, it is good line period and as far as stretch goes, it was actually a little less than my previous line so everything is good with 6lb, off to get some in 8lb and see if it too works as well as this line did.

Nice review, Dan.  I use a lot of 8# on baitcast reels.  Spinning reels get 6# or 8#.  Sounds like a winner.  Will have o give it a shot myself.  Thanks.