No braid for medium heavy acion rods for walleye trolling?

[tacklejunkie]

I picked up a couple more rods to add to my trolling collection. I plan on using these for both trolling Superior for trout and the bay for walleyes. The rods are a 9 foot in Med/Heavy

While discusing what line to put on, I was informed that for med/heavy rods, it's better to put mono as it has stretch and braid will cause more lost fish in med/heavy action. Has this been the experience of others?

[corncob]

Use braid and set your drag lighter, best of both worlds.

[Naturboy]

I fish Fireline a lot and with it there is no stretch, so it is better to have a softer tip, IMO. I have fluorocarbon on my med. action rods which is less stretch than mono but still works good on a stiffer rod.

[tacklejunkie]

Use braid and set your drag lighter, best of both worlds.

That might work except these are the TDR rods and they seem kinda stiff

[Northlander]

Either run mono or run something like Suffix 832 and put a mono "Shocker" leader of 10 to 20' on it. Only reason I use a superline for trolling is if I want extra depth with out using leadcore, snapweights or other depth getting aids. I run mono on all my board rods.

[jmg]

Tackle junkie: Those TDR rods are quite stiff, but they seem to hold up real well. One I have is 8'6" and is supposed to be a medium, but seems to be more like a med/heavy or a heavy. But, if you do as suggested and put a healthy length fluoro or mono leader and lighten up the drag, you should be ok. Right now I have Sufix fused metered line on that particular rod and it has performed very well.

[tacklejunkie]

Looks like the answer is to use mono for them. Yep, they are stiff. Seem to be much more stiffer than my Wilderness rods

[kfk]

I think there are several reasons to use some sort of superline for the main line (Fireline, Power Pro, etc.) and either a mono or fluorocarbon leader in your situation to provide stretch. One of the reasons would be that while mono will break down from heat and UV light, requiring changing line probably annually to ensure the integrity of your line. Superline will not break down or weaken for virtually years. I've had Power Pro on some reels for 5 years with no sign of weakening. If you want to change line annually or risk weakened line it's up to you, but why?

Now, if you're running superline on a line counter reel with say a 30 foot leader of fluorocarbon or mono line for a leader to provide stretch and your linecounter is calibrated for that length, as your leader breaks or has to be shortened because of breaks and nicks, etc., all you'll have to do is replace the 30 foot leader and your line counter numbers will again be right on. Even if you don't replace your leader until it's virtually gone, 30 feet off of the total spool length will not noticeably affect your line counter numbers.

On the other hand, with mono, you'll constantly retie the end of your line all season long due to breakoffs and nicks, etc. and eventually, the line on your spool decreases to a point where your line counter numbers are not what they once were, affecting the depth of your lures.

Successful trolling is all about duplicating what is successful and to me, anything that's going to decrease my ability to duplicate successful results is going to decrease fishing success. I'm sure I'll get arguements, but I think trolling with mono does that.

[jmg]

Tackle junkie! Kfk is right. I forgot to add that I use a 25ft. fluoro leader with that Sufix metered line that changes colors every 25 ft. Like kfk said, makes it easy to duplicate how much line you want out. It is fun to be able to get to the same distance quickly after landing a fish. Good luck with your decisions on this.

[tacklejunkie]

I also would be using these rods for lake trout if that makes any difference. They have a softer mouth than walleyes. Will the 20-30 foot mono leader work for lake trout?

[Northlander]

Yes no problem.

[jigginjim]

I put a mono shock tippet on all rods with braid lines. The times it's not done is rod to throw spinner baits for bass.