I recently purchased a St. Croix LTB MF 6'8". I fish out of a kayak, so I figured this rod would be a good all around rod for pretty much everything except for cranks.

I currently have been using it on 30 lb braid, but once I start fishing jerk baits again, I will want to spool with some flouro, but I also want to use it for finesse jigs and light T-rigs.

What is the heaviest flouro I could get away with without hurting the action of the jerkbaits, while also using the lightest line to effectively fish t-rigs and finesse jigs? I was thinking 12-14.

 

Thanks in advance!

I don't use fluoro with jerkbaits, 10# CXX works best for me.

Just now, J Francho said:

I don't use fluoro with jerkbaits, 10# CXX works best for me.

Do you use that for Jigs and T-rigs too? When I river fish I could use the abrasion resistance of the fluorocarbon, that's why I was thinking flouro. 

First is this a spinning rod or baitcasting rod.  Fluoro can get hairy in larger diameters on spinning reels.  Most Fluoros have memory issues when used on spinning reels, especially over 8 pounds.

I use P Line FloroClear (a copolymer line with a fluoro coating) and a lot of my friends use P Line CXX but not over 8 pounds.  Also they like 6 and 8 pound Halo and again not over that 8 pound test on a 2500 or 3000 sized reel.  Now for baitcasters that memory issue is much less a problem. i would consider 10 pound cxx or even 10 pound Halo. I use a lot of 12 pound FluoroClear as well.

If you want abrasion resistance and a line you can not cut with your teeth use 6 or 8 pound Halo

Yeah this is a baitcaster. I know what you mean, I try not to run higher than 8 lb flouro on my spinning gear. 

12# Seaguar or some 14# Sunline Sniper would work good.  I pretty much do what you are doing all the time.  I can't get away with 10# t-rigging, but I've tried.

Yes.  If you want to go higher, you can go to 12#, which has a break strength of around 22 lbs.

3 minutes ago, J Francho said:

Yes.  If you want to go higher, you can go to 12#, which has a break strength of around 22 lbs.

OK, I have a 8lb spinning set-up for lighter jerkbaits. I was thinking 12 lb would be good so long as it didn't affect the action too much.

Tie on a leader and experiment with a variety of lines. For single hooks I suggest Tatsu #12; for treble hooks, Sunline Deifer Armilo #10

 

.

 

 

I believe you can get away with 12, 14, or even 17 pound Halo or FluoroClear for everything except the jerkbaits. Actually I like a rod with a softer slower action for jerkbaits anyway, so my jerkbait rod has 10 pound FluoroClear and my rod for all of my jigs and t rigs has 30 pound braid and a 10 pound CXX leader.

9 minutes ago, roadwarrior said:

Tie on a leader and experiment with a variety of lines. For single hooks I suggest like Tatsu #12; for treble hooks, Sunline Deifer Armilo #10

 

.

 

 

In your opinion, is Tatsu worth 2x the price of abrasx? I don't know if I can live with myself to buy such an expensive line. Maybe a happy medium would be to spool 40-60 percent with a cheap mono backing...

I have two baitcasters spooled with Tatsu as the mainline, no leader. These rigs are dedicated to (1) bottom contact and another (2) for swim jigs. I have several others spooled with Smackdown mainline and fluorocarbon leaders. I NEVER fish braid by itself. For leader I DO NOT think you need Tatsu, it is just residual for me from leftover spools. My recommendation for leader is #12 AbrazX on baitcasting gear, #8 InvizX for spinning tackle. For treble hooks I prefer not using any braid, using #10 Sunline Defier Armilo as the mainline (75+ yards) and any leftover backing.

4 minutes ago, roadwarrior said:

I have two baitcasters spooled with Tatsu as the mainline, no leader. These rigs are dedicated to (1) bottom contact and another (2) for swim jigs. I have several others spooled with Smackdown mainline and fluorocarbon leaders. I NEVER fish braid by itself. For leader I DO NOT think you need Tatsu, it is just residual for me from leftover spools. My recommendation for leader is #12 AbrazX on baitcasting gear, #8 InvizX for spinning tackle. For treble hooks I prefer not using any braid, using #10 Sunline Defier Armilo as the mainline (75+ yards) and any leftover backing.

So... let's just say hypothetically , you wanted to fish jerk baits (110's & HJ10-12's) and light T-rigs. Would you choose #12 tatsu, #12 abrasx, or braid with a flouro leader? I don't have enough experience with this stuff, so I'm trying to narrow this down so I can only test a few different combinations.

Here is how I setup all of my reels to make it affordable. The typical baitcaster holds about 150 yards of line. My Diawas hold exactly that much. So if I want to fill it up with braid or fluoro then I have to buy a 300 yard spool. if I am going to use the Tatsu it would cost around $45 for 200 yards. I basically fill one reel for $45. In doing this I still must put on some mono to avoid the braid from slipping. Instead i spool 1/2 of the reel up with either Stren Clear Blue, or Berkley Trilene that costs $8 for a 330 yard spool of 14 pound test. I also like the Bass Pro Excel, it costs $11 for 1200 yards. So the Stren costs about 2.5 cents a foot, it lays nice on the reel and now i only add 75 yards of Tatsu which drops the cost significantly ( by the way Tatsu cost 22.5 cents a yard) which comes to 16.87. Now we spooled a reel for 18.75. If you stretched it a bit by adding a little more mono and only added about 66 yards you could make the spool fill three reels. If not you use 75 yards per reel and have 50 yards left to use as leader material for your reels with braid.  Another benefit is say you have a major catastrophe all you need to do is replace 75 yards of fluoro or braid.

Use a uni to uni knot to join backing to braid or fluoro and use the same knot to tie on braid or fluoro to the leader.  I have gone to this method for all of my reels spinning and baitcasters.

Well, ideally I would fish jerkbaits with Armilo (mainline) and T-rigs with fluorocarbon (mainline), but since you want to fish both with the same rig, I would fish the Sunline Defier Armilo.

 

1 hour ago, stk44 said:

Do you use that for Jigs and T-rigs too? When I river fish I could use the abrasion resistance of the fluorocarbon, that's why I was thinking flouro. 

CXX and Izorline Platinum are both very good lines for abrasion resistance.  It has been my limited experience that if you get snagged with fluorocarbon, you will have to cut off a few extra feet of line before re-tying.  I don't have that problem with a mono or co-polymer.  Also try not to backlash fluoro.  Any kink in fluoro is very bad.

1 hour ago, roadwarrior said:

Well, ideally I would fish jerkbaits with Armilo (mainline) and T-rigs with fluorocarbon (mainline), but since you want to fish both with the same rig, I would fish the Sunline Defier Armilo.

 

So I looked up the Armilo line. It says it's ideal for topwater as well, which definitely piques my interest.

My concern is if it would float, wouldn't that make it much more difficult for suspending jerk baits to suspend?

I wouldn't go above 12 lb. 10 lb is what I find optimal for jerkbaits and finesse jigs on the same set up. I would also pay more attention to diameters rather pound test. Tatsu is wicked good line. I absolutely love it. Sniper would be my 2nd choice.