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Braided line fail...

10K views 66 replies 43 participants last post by  RiverMan 
#1 Ā·
Lost a nice Nook yesterday fishing Kwiks on the CR. 50 # Power Pro braid broke off cleanly above the swivel shortly after the take down / hook set.

Anyone else ever have an issue like this? This is the first time i have lost a fish like this. Line is brand new?
 
#4 Ā·
With braid be sure to wet the line before cinching it down.

I've never had a problem with Power Pro. The only time its broken before my leader is when it gets really nicked up and I'm too lazy to retie.
 
#8 Ā·
Lost a nice Nook yesterday fishing Kwiks on the CR. 50 # Power Pro braid broke off cleanly above the swivel shortly after the take down / hook set.

Anyone else ever have an issue like this? This is the first time i have lost a fish like this. Line is brand new?
Classic Power Poop. I ran into a bad bulk spool a while back and am much happier with JB soild or hollow. A littele more but definately worth the peace of mind and not having to worry about your line. Plus it's made in OREGON!!! :applause:.
 
#37 Ā·
Classic Power Poop. I ran into a bad bulk spool a while back and am much happier with JB soild or hollow. A littele more but definately worth the peace of mind and not having to worry about your line. Plus it's made in OREGON!!! :applause:.
JB (Jerry Brown) Spectra is high quality, it's an Oregon company and Jerry is a good person. Most of my Spectra and all of my hollow Spectra is JB.

If I'm tying knots in Spectra it's usualy a Uni.
 
#9 Ā·
Maybe i need to tie a different knot? i tied the terminal knot with a clinch knot. I have successfully used that knot for ever and never had an issue with either braid or mono.I am absolutely methodical when tying my knots, often checking them multiple times to ensure that they are correctly tied. The only thing above the Swivel was a corky and then a plastic slider for my dropper. Might be a bad spool of line or a knick?? but the line only had one trip on it before yesterday and i am pretty careful about things. It was a very clean, almost surgical seperation......
 
#11 Ā·
Fish-N-Fool knot gets my vote every time. It's quick and easy to tie and gets the job done for sure.

Tie it, connect your swivel to a 20# weight and lift it....it should hold just fine being 50# line...that'll give you the confidence in your line and knot.
 
#12 Ā·
Clinch knot reminds me of FishOn rodholders.

Clinch knot may be the most popular knot tied, but I'll never understand why folks insist on going with a knot so prone to failure.

Clinch knot is a 70% knot in mono.... in my eyes, that's a 30% failure rate. It has only one worthwhile attribute.... quick and extremely EASY to tie (even blindfolded and in the dark!). Gets you back in the game in a hurry if you break off in the middle of a hot bite.

Clinch knot and superbraid NEVER belong in the same sentence except when the word NOT falls in between.
 
#13 Ā·
Agreed. It may be the wrong knot for mono and for braid, but it's for different reasons--it breaks at 70% mono strength, but it will slip at the first sign of serious pressure with braid. You could land small salmon all season and not put enough pressure on the knot to make it slip, but it doesn't take too many lost barn-door halibut to change old habits in a hurry.

Fish-n-fool looks fine, uni works, but why not go with the good-'ol-palomar--it's as easy, fast, fool-proof, and strong as you're going to get with braid.
 
#15 Ā·
Lots of good information about the knots. As i mentioned before i have been tying the clinch knot forever and have never had a failure, knot slip or what ever you want to call it. That being said if there is a different knot that has a better hold ( Palomar for example ) then i am not against using that. I do not believe that this knot failed, it severed and severed cleanly. I have always tied the clinch because as Eyefish mentioned it was fast and idiot proof to tie and it has never failed me with either braid or mono. Might be time for me to change that though after hearing about the 30% failure mentioned above...
 
#19 Ā·
... I do not believe that this knot failed, it severed and severed cleanly.
None of us know if the line broke or the knot slipped, obviously. It's fairly easy to tell on mono because you'll get the pig-tail twist on the end. My guess is that the separation looked surgical because it was the cut tag end of your line that slipped through the knot. Braid doesn't have much in the way of memory.

I use the Trilene knot (basically a suped-up clinch) on mono because, as eyeFish said, I can tie it in the dark. I don't mind a lower breaking strength because I know I'm never going to put 20-25 lbs of pressure on a mainline knot. I'm OK with a 16lb breaking strength. I've actually had some pretty weak Palomar ties with mono--not sure why, but I'm fairly confident that it's operator error.
 
#20 Ā·
If fishing with a slider on your mainline look at the slider. I have had failures with metal sliders due to a burr in the ID of the slider, especially problematic when bouncing out while plunking from the boat. Go with the plastic sliders to eliminate this problem.

Fins
 
#22 Ā·
If you run the line through the eye twice at the beginning of a clinch knot you should be 100% fine. I use it for halibut and used it guiding for fall chinook for 5 or 6 years and to the best of my memory have never had one knot fail. That was with power pro and tuff xp.
 
#26 Ā·
Not sure it helps or hurts but I always put a drop of super glue on my braid line used for terminal tackle while using a polymar or FnF knot. Don't think I've ever had a failure at the knot.
 
#27 Ā·
Ran into the same issue fishing oversize sturgeon in the Willamette last week. Missed my first hook set, so on the next opportunity, put my thumb on the spool and pulled hard. The 85 pound braided line (not sure of the brand) broke way above any knots, what seemed all too easily. Is the lack of "stretch" in braided lines a contributing factor?
 
#29 Ā·
One more possibilitity is the Corkie and Slider wearing on your line, and/or repeatedly slamming into your knot.

Also, while this does not appear to apply in your situation, Brass Swivels are easily nicked when clipping or cutting off tie to retie, and that almost invisible nick will cut into your line.
 
#30 Ā·
I would venture to say it was the plastic slider. The edges on the sliders (especially the metal ones) dig into the line especially with heavy lead plus add the force that is behind any good hook set. I used the metal sliders on 65# powerpro halibut fishing and bringing just the weight up off the bottom from a few hundred feet, two lines broke off and the other two lines that we reeled up were near breaking. Thankfully no halibut were lost due to this. Now we just use a corky and a large swivel for the slider.
 
#33 Ā·
dang, ive been using the improved clinch knot for 40 years. what an idiot. if your knot is breaking then you're not tying it right. or should i say you're burning it. i dont care what knot you tie, if you burn it, it will fail. i can honestly say i've never lost a fish using the improved clinch. mono or braid.
 
#36 Ā·
Clinch knot or improved clinch knot should only be used if you don't care about losing the fish. For me it's Palomar on braid and Trilene on mono - much better knots than either clinch knot. The other knots like Uni knot and the Fishn Fool "FNF" are harder for me to tie, although tests say they are even better.
 
#39 Ā·
Clinch knot or improved clinch knot should only be used if you don't care about losing the fish. For me it's Palomar on braid and Trilene on mono - much better knots than either clinch knot. The other knots like Uni knot and the Fishn Fool "FNF" are harder for me to tie, although tests say they are even better.
ive landed a 74 a 63 and a 59 on the kenai. all on improved clinch knots. your right i dont care.
 
#41 Ā·
palomar is the only way to go for braid to swivel connections.. that being said I use a clinch all the time.. never had a knot fail.......... I have had just a few fish landed over the years in my boat.... well over 10k.... if you lube the knot, have quality line, inspect it after each fish.. and re- tie when needed it works just fine! also helps to have the drag set properly........ but hey what do I know?
 
#43 Ā·
Lost a nice Nook yesterday fishing Kwiks on the CR. 50 # Power Pro braid broke off cleanly above the swivel shortly after the take down / hook set.

Anyone else ever have an issue like this? This is the first time i have lost a fish like this. Line is brand new?
The only question I have is in your last statement about it broke cleanly after the take down / hook set.

Are you setting the hook? Braid has no stretch. I watch a guide in a boat next to me in a hogline a few years back break 65# power pro on 3 springers on the takedown / hook set. It was like he was fishing sailfish on the hookset.

On my boat with Kwikfish and power pro, road goes off get it out of the holder and fight the fish....... don't swing away.
 
#44 Ā·
Lost a nice Nook yesterday fishing Kwiks on the CR. 50 # Power Pro braid broke off cleanly above the swivel shortly after the take down / hook set.

Anyone else ever have an issue like this? This is the first time i have lost a fish like this. Line is brand new?


Lots of good responses here about what knot you should be using. The important thing I have learned is with any knot with braid, the line must be doubled in one manner or another. I learned this after losing several dollars in jigs while kokanee fishing with new super braid and relying on my old standby of the improved clinch. Just when I was about to give up on the line as being no good, I read the label that recommended the Palomar knot. I tried that and have never considered going back to mono since. I used 14 lb FireLine in Wickiup and got hung on the bottom. I stopped the boat and began pulling the line by hand because my little reel couldn't handle the pull to break the line. Next thing I know, the little stump I was hooked on began its trip up to my boat. Out of the water it must have weighed near 80#'s. I know in the water it is a lot lighter but I know I couldn't have even come close with mono.

A standard clinch or a standard improved clinch is not a good choice of knots for braid period. I still use the improved clinch when I'm flyfishing as it works well enough for what I am doing and in mono it doesn't have the same fail rate. Plus the fact that I've been using it since I was old enough to learn to tie my first knot. If you either double the line over when you tie the improved clinch, or you thread it through the eye of your hook twice, then it can work on braid. But the Palomar knot tests higher, and is actually much easier to tie. I usually cheat and make it easy on myself and tie on one of those duo-lock fasteners at each connection point and then just clip on all my following hardware after that.

As some here have pointed out, the FNF knot tested higher than the Palomar knot, and if it makes you happier, use that one. What I found since beginning the use of the Palomar knot is that my line never breaks at the knot anymore. Not in test breaks or in actual fishing breaks. When my line breaks, it is always at some other weak spot in the line. And so far, has always been intentional. So, no matter which of those other knots test better than the Palomar knot, it isn't likely to be the knot that fails.

Also, since I haven't heard anyone mention this here yet, when tying line to line connections, I have switched from the good old standby of the blood knot to the uni-to-uni knot. This is a relatively simple knot to tie, much easier than some of the other dependable knots, and will hold much better than the blood knot, both in mono and in braid. Also, the blood knot will only hold reasonably well if using mono in similar sizes. The uni-to-uni knot seems to hold very well no matter what line types or diameters I am connecting. I have tied 30lb braid to 30lb mono using this knot and it holds great.

Good luck and if you switch to any of the other knots, the Palomar, the FNF, the FNP or any other of the good knots for braid, I'll bet your days of accidental break-offs are mostly all behind you.
 
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