When did it start becoming popular in the US with pros?

um, when they started getting sponsorships from PowerPro.  

Braided line dates back to at least the 50’s with braided Dacron but I think the modern super line craze largely started in the early to mid 90’s.  Fireline was an early one and I remember using it then.

The earliest I remember is Spiderwire, but I was whippersnapper in the 90s and 2000s.

Growing up so close to the Tennessee River,  cane poles rigged with braid were everywhere.  In the early 60s you could  buy them at mom and pop food markets, gas stations, hardware stores and, of course, all the bait shops.  I liked braid then, and I like it now.

Spiderline had a braid in the mid 90s, but it wasn't really popular.  Fireline got some momentum in the late 90s, especially with inshore crowd, but that's not really a braided line, its fused.  I like the hi viz flame green in #14.  It helped limit gut hooks when using senkos.

Power Pro was around, in the late 90s, but it didn't really get a whole lot of attention in my area until guys went from Fireline to PP in the early 2ks.  Within a few months PP gained a huge following, particularly with guys slinging clams and bunker.  The Sports Authority near me carried very little PP under 20lb and it was all moss green.  I did try it, and it was ok, but it was OG PP, stiff, loud and soaked up water after it wore in.  

Suffix came out soon after.  For light artificials, I thought suffix 832, was superior to the OG PP.  Berkley tried to get back into the game with several attempts that failed, like Gorilla and Ironsilk.  I recall Stren having a superline.  After my experiences with Stren, I wouldnt have used it if it was free.

I didn't watch a ton of professional fishing, but I do remember them pushing FC really hard at that time.  Both for mainlines and leader material.  

 

Japanese and Western pros were probably the earliest to adopt braid for spinning reels, chasing the tiniest possible diameter for the strength. I switched all my spinning reels to 10lb braid in the early-mid 2000’s after hearing Gary Yamamoto speak about the mono backer, braid main, fluorocarbon leader system that he used. 

 

3 minutes ago, ElGuapo928 said:

Japanese and Western pros were probably the earliest to adopt braid for spinning reels, chasing the tiniest possible diameter for the strength. I switched all my spinning reels to 10lb braid in the early-mid 2000’s after hearing Gary Yamamoto speak about the mono backer, braid main, fluorocarbon leader system that he used. 

 

Did you see any increase in your catch quantity or quality?

I will say that I’ve more than doubled my catch since switching to this system, especially in deep water. The lack of stretch and absence of the coiling inherent with straight fluorocarbon on the spinning reel does a superior job of telegraphing strikes, this also allows for a better hookset. The high vis braid also shows movement better than the fluorocarbon ever could. 
 

Early on I used a swivel and a 2-3 foot leader, now I tie an Alberto knot with a 10 foot leader. 

31 minutes ago, ElGuapo928 said:

I will say that I’ve more than doubled my catch since switching to this system, especially in deep water. The lack of stretch and absence of the coiling inherent with straight fluorocarbon on the spinning reel does a superior job of telegraphing strikes, this also allows for a better hookset. The high vis braid also shows movement better than the fluorocarbon ever could. 
 

Early on I used a swivel and a 2-3 foot leader, now I tie an Alberto knot with a 10 foot leader. 

Thanks.

 

Did you have an increase in bites, or just an increase in hook setting and landing?

7 hours ago, Bazoo said:

Thanks.

 

Did you have an increase in bites, or just an increase in hook setting and landing?

It’s hard to say if I am getting more bites, or detecting more bites. Ultimately the number has grown, but I cannot say for certain either way.

Spider Wire had an infomercial in the early 1990s that seemed to kick off the craze.  That stuff was very expensive for the time.  I remember seeing spools at the tackle shops for no less than $20, often approaching the $30 mark.  One could purchase a halfway decent reel at the time for similar money.  Good monofilament like Maxima was about $5 per spool.  I remember a friend of mine bought a spool of Spider Wire and filled up his Shakespeare Sigma baitcaster with it, he ended up getting a hell of a backlash deep into the spool and had to cut it out.  His old man was livid.  I never saw that man spit fire like that, even when his son got a drag racing ticket a few years later.

I remember its introduction as well and really had little interest in using it initially. What I did see were rods being destroyed on hook sets, guides on rods becoming grooved w cuts, anglers reporting lacerations from trying to break off snags etc. 

 

I don’t remember exactly but one prominent company claimed Kevlar in its blend 😂. Spool lips, reels, rods began to fortify the product. But for a few years it was pretty wild. 

Got my first casting rod back in 1991...spooled up with mono...and proceeded to get backlash after backlash(!)

 

Fishing buddy from Texas recommended switching over to braid...so I spooled up with Fenwick Iron Thread (on recommendation from buddy who worked at Cabela's). Game changer!!

 

I've been fishing braid on my casting rods exclusive since then.

 

Switched my spinning rods over to braid back in 2020, after finding this site...and getting properly educated. Again, game changer!!

Dacron braid has been around since at least the 50's.  In the early eighties Gudebrod tried to marketed a dacron braid called bass braid.  It was inexpensive and strong, but very thick for it's pound test.  It was not a commercial success,  although they still make the same braid but simply call it Dacron Braid.  In 1993 Stren came out with a Kevlar braid.  It was the first super braid, which was extremely thin for it's strength.  At almost the same time Izorline, Tuffline, spiderwire and many other spectra fiber braids hit the market.

 

I was guiding for king salmon in Alaska at the time and another guide I knew had a Stren sponsorship.  He talked me into spooling all of my reels with the Kevlar line.  His big pitch at the sportsman's show in Anchorage that spring was the kevlar line was more resistant to heat than the spectra lines. He would demonstrate this by crossing a kevlar line, and a spectra line, while pulling on one or the other.  The Kevlar line would always cut through the spectra line because of the heat produced by the friction of the two lines rubbing against each other.  He then went on to claim the same thing would happen if a Spectra line was wrapped on a log, boat prop, or other object that line tends to come in contact with.  What he didn't mention was Kevlar did not hold up to UV rays well.  At first, with the exception of almost cutting a finger off trying to pull a lure from a snag, I was pleased with the performance. Then after a couple of weeks the line started to break with almost zero pressure applied.  Both types of braid were extremely expensive to a struggling young guide, and loosing some of the biggest king salmon of the season did nothing to help my finances.  Needless to say I replaced the line with Maxima mono and made it through the remainder of the season with a severe dislike of new super braids.

 

The Kevlar line was a huge failure, but the Spectra braids didn not have a problem with UV, and became extremely popular.  By the mid 90's There were dozens of brands of modern braided fishing line.  All of them were and still are made of some form of Polyethylene.  Spectra and Dyneema are two of the most popular types, but there are other proprietary Polyethylene fibers, as well as some made with generic polyethylene fibers.  They are all very similar materials, and come in a variety of weaves, both in number of strands, (4,8,7,9,) and type of weaves measured in a certain number of weaves per inch, or centimeter.  Many of the modern braids have coatings applied to make them slick, add color, or change the stiffness of the line.

 

I was slow to give the new super braids a fair shot after my miserable Kevlar failure, and didn't start using braid for any application until around the year 2000.  Most Bass Pros by the late 90's were using braid for some or all techniques.  By the early 2000's braid was the king of fishing line.  Around that time Fluorocarbon lines started to appear, giving anglers another choice.  At this time some bass anglers started to realize that line stretch wasn't always a bad thing, and braid though thin was highly visible to the fish.  Many switched to braid to leader, were experimenting with fluorocarbon, or even went back to mono for some applications. 

 

While straight braid has many advantages and a devot following among many bass anglers, more anglers now are only using it for certain situations.  Fluorocarbon which is even more expensive that braid especially if you factor in braids almost unlimited useful life span, is as or more popular than braid, and mono comes in third, but still has some very loyal anglers using it for a variety of techniques.

 

The advantages and disadvantages of modern braided fishing line makes for great winter time debates, but no one can argue the introduction of the super braids in the early 90's was one of the biggest advancements in the last 100 years of fishing. 

Braided line goes back to the 50s or 60s, but sometime in the late 90s or early 2000s it started to become more popular and would quickly become a staple in every line manufacturer's product catalogs.

 

Some years ago visiting my grandparents, my dad had found his childhood rod and reel. And what do you know, it was a round style baitcaster loaded with some braided line. The line had no coating and was pretty thick and limp, but largely intact. I caught several fish on it as a kid.

Randy Dearman, Texas pro and guide, is credited with putting modern braided line on the map in the world of pro bassin’ when he won the Texas Invitational (1993) using an early version:

 

Dearman - braided line

My first baitcasting reel was filled with green nylon braided line some time in the late 40s.  My conventional saltwater reel was filled with the same line until mono was available in the early 50s I think.  When I bottom fished for rock cod lower than 200' I used dacron on a 6/0 Penn reel.  When I took up bass fishing in the 70s I used mono until I move to GA in '99 and bought some fluorocarbon for my baitcasting finesse worm reel.  About 2015 I tried a spool of Power Pro for my spoon jigging reel with a short mono or fluor leader.  I'm a late fan of braid for spinning reels with a fluoro leader and I like it fine when I'm fishing a tight line.  I still have a spool of 12 lb dacron and 80 lb on a 6/0 Penn.

 

On 8/11/2025 at 6:23 PM, Bazoo said:

The earliest I remember is Spiderwire, but I was whippersnapper in the 90s and 2000s.

I'd been married a little over 7.5 years when you were born.  Married at 28.  Whippersnapper is right.