So I’ve been 100% braid to leader for the last 3 or 4 seasons now and love it. I recommend it to everyone I talk to pretty much because of the benefits I see to it. I have a 6’8” m xf jerkbait rod with a curado 70 on it that has no line at the moment. I have decided I’m going to give straight floro a shot one more time, can’t even remember how it feels to fish that way. Doubt I’ll like it more than braid to leader but it’s always good to try all my options. The 2 lines I am trying to decide between are Sunline sniper and Sunline assassin as those are the two I have had the most success with as leaders and can buy both locally. Planning on using 12lbs, pretty light rod that I’m putting it on. Most likely will be using it for shaky heads, and maybe throw a jerkbait, topwater, or smaller squarebill on it as well. Which of those two lines do you guys like better? And do you guys have any other recommendations to make the switch easier? If you have read any of my previous posts you know how much of a fan I am or braid to leader, I pretty much want to try this so I can make a better comparison between the two different ways of fishing. Going to keep my mind open when I try it, so many people swear by straight floro it can’t be all that bad.

Invest in some higher quality flouro and give it a few sprays of kvd line conditioner and you shouldn’t have any issues. I really like seaguar invisx and sunline sniper. If you want to splurge, go for the seaguar tatsu.

 

Flouro works great with feel techniques, crankbaits, jerkbaits, spinnerbaits, chatterbaits, etc. Its not my first choice for topwater since it sinks and will pull the nose of the bait down.

55 minutes ago, Ogandrews said:

So I’ve been 100% braid to leader for the last 3 or 4 seasons now and love it. I recommend it to everyone I talk to pretty much because of the benefits I see to it. I have a 6’8” m xf jerkbait rod with a curado 70 on it that has no line at the moment. I have decided I’m going to give straight floro a shot one more time, can’t even remember how it feels to fish that way. Doubt I’ll like it more than braid to leader but it’s always good to try all my options. The 2 lines I am trying to decide between are Sunline sniper and Sunline assassin as those are the two I have had the most success with as leaders and can buy both locally. Planning on using 12lbs, pretty light rod that I’m putting it on. Most likely will be using it for shaky heads, and maybe throw a jerkbait, topwater, or smaller squarebill on it as well. Which of those two lines do you guys like better? And do you guys have any other recommendations to make the switch easier? If you have read any of my previous posts you know how much of a fan I am or braid to leader, I pretty much want to try this so I can make a better comparison between the two different ways of fishing. Going to keep my mind open when I try it, so many people swear by straight floro it can’t be all that bad.

assassin is quality line, best bang for buck IMO. It's what i use on all of my baitcasters except for topwater & punching outfit. 12 lb is the right size for your jerkbait, dont throw topwater on fluorocarbon it sinks and will mess the action up, stick to your braid to leader or straight braid there. Just be prepared to have to respool more often than once every 3 years because it will go bad. If you run your spool under hot water for 30 seconds after you put the line on it will take out all of the memory and be good to go. your baits that sink & reaction baits will all fish better. 

I'm all Assassin for fluoro currently. Handles well, inexpensive, not too stretchy. Be sure to treat it with something like KVD Line n Lure after you spool it and let it sit overnight. I've never felt the need to do anything other than that.

Thanks for the reply’s. Honestly not really sure why I said I’d be throwing topwater on it as I never do that even with just a floro leader, wrote this thread first thing when I woke up wasn’t really thinking. I’m going to go with assassin as that’s what I have always liked the best for leaders, who knows I might like it and keep it on that rod.

I made this same switch this year. I had given up on fluoro a few years ago because of the memory issues. 

 

My issue was that I was using cheap fluoro. 

 

I recently bought a used reel on here that came spooled with 16lb sniper. The seller told me it was brand new line, but had been sitting on the spool for a long time, like 2 years. I didn't have any line to put on it when it came in, and I really wanted to go try it out. So I just used what it came with. 

 

75% of my rods now have Sniper on em, if that tells you anything. My other reels have the original CX  copoly line on em, which is extremely manageable as well. 

Well I gave it a try for 2 hours at a pond a couple minutes from my house. Really weedy especially by shore so all I was able to throw was a shakey head by the edges and a senko. Really terrible conditions, 30 degrees colder than yesterday, bluebird skies and 20-30mph gusts. Had a couple bites that I missed, felt so weird trying to set the hook. Felt like I couldn’t get a good hook set because of all the stretch, but that could easily be because I wasn’t reeling down enough and getting it tight. It will take some getting used to but I’m going to try it some more. I think I’d probably like it a lot better for moving baits like a crank. Personally it felt like a big step down in sensitivity, felt like I couldn’t tell what my bait was in and couldn’t tell a fish had picked it up until way after I would have noticed with braid to leader. Can’t make my mind up on it from one short outing so I’ll give it an honest shot. I will say it did cast better than I expected, still wasn’t nearly as far as I would usually but it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. 

Update 2- threw squarebills for a couple hours today on floro for the first time and was definitely not a fan. Couldn’t feel when the bait was in grass nearly as well, harder to clear the grass off the bait, felt like I couldn’t control the fish as well and didn’t get the same casting distance. Not going to give it up yet but really doubt I’ll be spooling any more rods up with it.

18 hours ago, Ogandrews said:

Update 2- threw squarebills for a couple hours today on floro for the first time and was definitely not a fan. Couldn’t feel when the bait was in grass nearly as well, harder to clear the grass off the bait, felt like I couldn’t control the fish as well and didn’t get the same casting distance. Not going to give it up yet but really doubt I’ll be spooling any more rods up with it.

You are me! Same situation, I tried two different setups with tatsu 12lb based on it being the best money can buy. Everything I tried felt like a rubber band. Somebody said that if you start with braid to leader you'll never be able to go back to straight fluorocarbon or mono. With braid to leader every rip of a jerkbait gives you the feedback to know what's happening. I would constantly be feeling attempting to feel what's going on. I doubt I'll leave braid to leader. I've been happy with the system leader in 16, 20 & 30lb

1 hour ago, Chief250 said:

You are me! Same situation, I tried two different setups with tatsu 12lb based on it being the best money can buy. Everything I tried felt like a rubber band. Somebody said that if you start with braid to leader you'll never be able to go back to straight fluorocarbon or mono. With braid to leader every rip of a jerkbait gives you the feedback to know what's happening. I would constantly be feeling attempting to feel what's going on. I doubt I'll leave braid to leader. I've been happy with the system leader in 16, 20 & 30lb

Yesterday I had a braid leader setup with me that I was fishing on and off along with the straight floro and it was unbelievable. I know I’m biased toward braid to leader but it felt like 5x more sensitive to me, with a similar rod.

If you are not using bottom contact lures in deep water ( over 20' ) why use FC?

FC dosen't cast very good without adding line conditioner consistantly, doesn't have high abrasion resistance or good knot strength or impact strength. Bass are not shy line.

I have used straight FC of nearly every brand since the early 90's, over 25 years and have decades of experience using it.

My recommendation from what lures you want to use is Sunline Deifer Armillo Nylon 11 lb test. 

Tom

Just a matter of time before FC jumps off the spinning reel. 

8 minutes ago, APK62 said:

Just a matter of time before FC jumps off the spinning reel. 

The op's has a casting reel.

9 minutes ago, APK62 said:

Just a matter of time before FC jumps off the spinning reel. 

It was on a bait caster, floro on a spinning reel is torture to try to fish. In the middle of the winter here I’ll switch from braid to suffix advanced mono to help with the reel and rod eyes freezing up. Not a huge fan of it for leaders but advanced is as good as a main line as you can get for mono imo, super low stretch and quite sensitive. 

 

31 minutes ago, WRB said:

If you are not using bottom contact lures in deep water ( over 20' ) why use FC?

FC dosen't cast very good without adding line conditioner consistantly, doesn't have high abrasion resistance or good knot strength or impact strength. Bass are not shy line.

I have used straight FC of nearly every brand since the early 90's, over 25 years and have decades of experience using it.

My recommendation from what lures you want to use is Sunline Deifer Armillo Nylon 11 lb test. 

Tom

I’m not saying that fishing straight floro or mono is bad, only reason I tried floro was due to people I fish with using it and really liking it. With the stretch of floro being one of the things I dislike so much about it I really doubt I’d like mono much better. I’ve never tried suffix advance on a casting rod because I rarely bring them out when it’s really cold out, but on a spinning rod that stuff isn’t too bad when it’s too cold to fish braid. With as much confidence as i have with braid to a leader I’m not going to switch over any of my other setups. I am going to get some line conditioner and keep trying the floro setup I have because I shouldn’t make up my mind after only 2 trips. The difference in sensitivity between floro and braid to a mono leader is astounding though, couldn’t feel a fraction of the stuff on floro that I could with braid to a leader. 

I'm a braid to leader guy for the reasons you mentioned.....don't stray.

For what it's worth, Sufix Advance seems to be a nice compromise if you are coming from the low stretch of braid. I keep putting it on more and more reels. Only two left with braid or braid/leader - heavy rod and chatterbait rod. One or two with tatsu and everything else with advance. And it isn't very expensive to try it out, just be forewarned that it is a bit oversized... look at the line diameter not the test.

4 minutes ago, txchaser said:

For what it's worth, Sufix Advance seems to be a nice compromise if you are coming from the low stretch of braid. I keep putting it on more and more reels. Only two left with braid or braid/leader - heavy rod and chatterbait rod. One or two with tatsu and everything else with advance. And it isn't very expensive to try it out, just be forewarned that it is a bit oversized... look at the line diameter not the test.

Not sure if you read my posts or not but I do use suffix advance on spinning rods in the winter because braid freezes up so bad. It’s the best mono I’ve tried, but it’s still really far from braid when it comes to sensitivity, castability, and all the other benefits I’ve talked about when it comes to braid to leader. For a mono/Coply advance is awesome, like it a lot as leader material for finesse applications instead of using floro.

Well I brought my floro combo out with me on Sunday when I fished from my boat. Casting wise it was night and day, idk why I had such an issue using it from the shore but from the boat I wasn’t having nearly as much of the fluffing issues I was having. Still didn’t cast as far as I would have with braid, but it wasn’t much off. After doing it some more I can understand why guys like it, Im still going to stick with braid though. I’ll keep using that setup with the line that’s on it until I feel like the floro is past it’s prime, I’m interested to see how I would like jerkbaiting on it.