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Rotten Floro Carbon??

2K views 31 replies 17 participants last post by  GAT 
#1 ·
So I am connecting some florocarbon leader material to my fly line and the knot kept breaking.

Finally, I just stretched the leader material and it broke......just like rotten nylon leaders.

I thought florocarbon did NOT get rotten. At $15 a leader spool that's expensive.

So it looks like $75 of leader material into the garbage....better to find out today at the table than tomorrow on the lake!!

Anybody else had this problem??
 
#3 ·
There's flouro and there's flouro. I see that some companies advertise "100% flourocarbon" which indicates to me that some products sold under the name of flourocarbon may be some manner of mix.

I know I've purchased some flouro from a specific company and it did easily break over time. I no longer buy that brand. Other brands do not have that problem so I now stick with them.
 
#25 ·
There's flouro and there's flouro. I see that some companies advertise "100% flourocarbon" which indicates to me that some products sold under the name of flourocarbon may be some manner of mix.

I know I've purchased some flouro from a specific company and it did easily break over time. I no longer buy that brand. Other brands do not have that problem so I now stick with them.
I know you can't name the problem brand, but which brands have you had luck with?

I wonder if it's age and storage environment? Fluoro ought to be pretty resistant, but an ozone rich environment (contact relays, motors, furnaces, etc) can be rough on some materials.
 
#7 ·
Fish it Vladimir...makes for better sport ;). I find fluorocarbon too dam expensive and limit my use of it to really tough spring creek waters. I really haven't found it to make that much difference in success rate IMO.
 
#9 ·
Fish it Vladimir...makes for better sport ;). I find fluorocarbon too dam expensive and limit my use of it to really tough spring creek waters. I really haven't found it to make that much difference in success rate IMO.
For sport nothing beats fishing a fly with the hook point broken off.

The reason I switched was that I was replacing leaders for four reels or more every year and then buying a new set of mono tippets since they rotted so quickly. If you look at the lifespan I am not sure if mono is any cheaper than flurocarbon. I had that set of fluoro for four years. In that span, of time I would probably have bought three sets of mono tippets.

It would nice if somebody came up with a simple tool that would measure breaking point of fishing line.

Just came back from the store with $75 of tippet material. I asked the owner about lifespan of fluro. His fishing expert pointed out that fluro is made of petroleum products and will eventually break down.
 
#10 ·
Still, good quality mono (I like RIO Powerflex) is about 3x less than fluorocarbon and I always feel better knowing I have reasonably fresh stuff... painful throwing $15 spools of fc in the trash. I still have a good friend who is a well known guide in Stevensville who fishes Maxima mono...swears by it.
 
#11 ·
Chemically, floro is really, really stable. It does not degrade, like mono, in sunlight (UV) or it does so slowly.

I have had some old floro that is just fine. However, I have had some new stuff that had bad spots - more than once. I have taken to stripping off 3-5 yds. when I get into a situation like you described. It typically has solved the problem and saved a lot of material.

I think the manufacturing process occasionally pumps out some bad sections. Most processes are less than perfect. I have found it to be rare and fixable. It is less onerous than throwing away mono every year and I get the benefits of the floro.

Super floro is one third thinner than mono, I find that to be a very big deal. I can manage quite big fish with 5X and put some pressure on them to land them quickly. The thinness provides the steath and the refraction index helps a little too. Yeah, it is spendy but a spool last quite a while at only 18" a pop.

Jerry
 
#14 ·
There have been 2 or 3 generations of fluorocarbon line with improvements in quality.
Perhaps your old spool was first generation material, and not as good as what is currently available.

Chemically fluorocarbon polymer is a very stable material.

Regarding the comment about "petroleum products", the fishing expert is neither well informed nor logical. both nylon and , for example, are synthetic carbon based materials, ultimately derived from petroleum feedstocks.

Jay
 
#15 ·
There have 2 or 3 generations of fluoro.
Perhaps yor old spool was first generation
But generally it is very stable.

Re petroleum product, both nylon and fluoro are synthetic carbon based materials.

Jay
Ok, Jay for me in SLOW ENGLISH.....what does this mean??

For those of you that never listened to Voice of America......SLOW ENGLISH was a news broadcast for people just learning English. A great concept.

I used it when working.....however, most native (ENGLISH) speakers have a real hard time with the concept.
 
#17 ·
From what I understand, fluorocarbon is more susceptible to weakening when cinching up a knot(due to heat), much more so than mono.

But, simply stretching it? Normally, it is known to retain its strength longer than mono. Likely a bad batch.

A bit off topic, but... Really wet those fluorocarbon knots down before cinching them up!
 
#19 ·
From what I understand, fluorocarbon is more susceptible to weakening when cinching up a knot(due to heat), much more so than mono!
BTW, I'm not an expert by any means but I read that mono weakens from water absorption; simply getting wet :eek: ?
 
#21 ·
Jay, there is something more going on.

There were three or four batches covering different years. AND they were All rotten. The break point was higher than really rotten mono, but it was there. They broke without a knot, merely me pulling them.
It did not matter if it was the beginning or last part of the roll. The break was the same.

Ok, seems like you know more than the fishing expert. So is there any data on lifetime of FloroCarbon??

Anybody have old dated FloroCarbon they can test?? I did notice on the new stuff there was a space for me to write in the date.

Thanks for the tip on SeaGaur....I think I will look for it at Bi-Mart.
 
#26 ·
This discussion has hit all the points I think.

They are:

the intrinsic properties of the material

the processing of the material into a monofilament product

the age and storage environment
extreme heat, solvent vapor exposure, or reactive gases might have affected the material.

since multiple different spools had the poor properties, perhaps they were stored together and all experienced the same environmental factors.

Jay
 
#27 ·
I would think somewhere along the way this tippet material got wet and than sat for a while! doesn't matter if it's mono or fluorocarbon if it's not taken care of.

After this winter I thought I lost my reading glasses (tying glasses) and looked through my back pack I use in my drifter for my glasses. all my fly box's and tippets and leaders and tools. just so happened that the bottom compartment had gotten wet and sat all winter. tools were ruined! some flies-pliers stuck together from rust. but all my leader material and tapered long leaders were just fine because they were all in zip-lock bags!

I tie my own flies so the things that cost me money to fly fish are LEADERS - TIPPETS - FLY LINES AND GAS! These things I am anal about! cleaning my fly lines and coating my dry lines with preserver and protecting my tippets and tapered leaders keeps the bills down for enjoying the sport, and gives me more money for gas.

I understand wanting to know just how long it takes fluoro and mono to degrade by science standards would be nice, but if it gets put away wet even pliers will rust and get ruined in no time. When protected in a cheap zip lock could take 5 years to brake down.

I have been using seagaur for over ten years and have had no problems. first testing it on stillwater steelhead in crystal clear water with schools of spooky fish. with gear rods bobber fishing with bait. when your boat hooks twenty and the boat next to you only hooks one using the same bait and tactics something says "IT'S THE LEADER" I went through all the brands that came out 15 years ago just testing them.

when maxima and p-line came out a few of my friends changed to those for strength, p-line and maxima fluoro can't be beat for strength but they are a thicker line and they just plain lie about the strength of their lines - 8 pound will brake at over 10 pounds most times. and I was still hooking more fish so one of my buddies started using 6 pound p-line to match my 8 pound seagaur. orvis-umpqua-rio will all brake right at the suggested weight! 8 pound will brake at 8 pound - I finally settled with seagaur for all my gear fishing and fly fishing, for the money it's the "BEST YOU CAN BUY" I read about it some 15 or 20 years ago in a saltwater mag. before fluoro was even know about with other fisherman and was one of the original companies to make it for "SALTWATER USE" and if it can keep those guys happy I had to try it! If you are just now going to start testing and researching fluoro products good luck because it should take years - I know it did me to settle on a good product at a good price!

Now testing lines to me can only be done on stillwaters, testing lines in moving water has to many variables to be accurate. I fished stillwater steelhead at the columbia backwaters above boni. for over 15 years and tested many egg cures - ****-stripe shrimp cures and yes leaders with bait under bobbers and flies with slow sinking fly lines with 12 to 14 foot leaders for stacked spooky steelhead and can say fluoro out fishes mono hands down in every way, no comparison! using fluorocarbon to be able to use 10 pound and 8 pound leaders for trout only helps to land fish fast to reduce mortality, the lowest I have had to go is 6 pound seagaur for stillwater trout up to 8 pounds. I have been trying to tell all the bait fisherman I run into while fly fishing for trout over east about fluoro because they fish 2 and 4 pound test leaders for these big smart trout that run 16 to 28 inches. releasing many of these fish to upgrade after the long drawn out battle the fish go through with light line and then released just kills them.

I'm not going to tell anybody to not use beads - or nymph for steelhead, or not use indicators or the only way to responsibly fly fish for steelhead is by swinging (what a joke)

But I will say if your not using fluorocarbon you are missing out on one of the best inventions-products that has ever came out for all fisherman, be it gear or fly!
 
#29 ·
Almost certainly the problem here is not the material, but the way it was stored. I still have spools of nylon monofilament that are perfectly fine after 15 years - but they are stored in a cool, dark, clean environment. Being left in the back seat of a car on a hot day is death to fishing line!
 
#30 ·
In my experience, ALL tippet eventually goes bad and usually the older it is, the more likely it is to break.

I used to stock up on tippet when I found it on sale. But since I don't go through that much of it, it didn't make sense for me to keep a 10-year supply on hand, no matter how good a deal I got on it, especially when the older stuff broke so often.

Nowadays, I've finally used up or thrown out my back stock of tippet and so I buy a fresh few spools at the beginning of every year. I'm a big fan of Orvis SuperStrong mono. It's about time for my annual purchase of a couple spools of 4X, and one each of 3X and 5X, along with a few 2-packs of SuperStrong 9' tapered leaders in 3X and 4X. This combination covers about 95% of my trout fishing needs.

To me, fluoro seems like an overpriced 'gimmick'. After using it extensively for several years, I found it didn't make any appreciable difference in my hookup rate. Plus, the money I saved by going back to mono buys me a bottle of whiskey, which I find a LOT more useful!

K
 
#32 ·
All I know is my personal experiences and those of my fishing buddies.

When it comes to stillwater fly fishing, F-carbon does make a difference.

It has been proven time and time again to us when one guy is catching fish using F-carbon and another guy is using mono yet the same style of fly line, the same length of leader and the same pattern and is catching zippo.

As a result, all the fly anglers I know who fish stillwaters use F-carbon.

When it comes to moving water -- I doubt if it makes that much difference.

The only time I fish moving waters these days is for Steelhead and I use clear Maxima (cable tippet material) for those guys.
 
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