Tournament Tips

By: Captain Shawn Foster, Dr. Drum

If you are using mono versus the new braid lines, the following suggestions should help you catch more fish on a regular outing, keep you from having to change your fishing line as often, and keep backlashes, overruns, and line twists down to a minimum.

Dr. Drum catches Reds with the Red Viper.

1. Always use a premium brand of line such as Berkley. This alone will reduce the chances of most normal line problems.

2. Make sure when spooling the line on the reel that you are not reeling from the spool with the label facing up to the rod tip. This common mistake will cause the line to go on the spool twisted which leads to problems. The way to compensate for this is to let the line out behind your boat to, say, 30% more than what you can cast. Run your boat 10 or 15 mph for five minutes, then reel the line in. This is Bible for preventing line twists on both new and used line. It also packs the line tighter on the spool for easier casting.

3. The correct way to spool line onto a spinning reel is to have the spool label facing away/down if you're using a screwdriver to hold it in place. If you have a line winder, have the label end of the spool facing away from you. Have the line coming off the top of the spool, not the bottom. Make sure you apply slight pressure on the line, so as to wind it on tight for fewer casting problems.

4. When fishing the new braided lines, you will experience a more sensitive feel. Other characteristics of the line are little, or no stretch when hook setting, more power to muscle fish from cover, and thinner diameter per pound test, than mono. A good example would be 10 lb. Power Pro versus a premium 10 lb. monofilament. The breaking strength of the mono would be somewhere between 10 and 12 lbs. The Power Pro breaks between 18 and 20 lb. pull with a line diameter of 4-6 lb. mono.

Now that I have filled your heads full of wisdom, a few last minute common sense ideas before you actually spool on the line.

5. Do not buy a braid, or mono, that is too big for the spool size itself. The best way to avoid this is to look at the bottom of the spool. There you will find a ledger of the amount and type of test line your fishing reel will hold. Example – 300 yd 6 lb. This would be the low end, and at the high end, it might read 120 yd 12 lb.

6. This is the most important tip of all. When filling your spool with mono, do not overfill the spool (put too much line on). This causes spinning reel hell in ways you don't even want to experience. Leave 1/8 of an inch of spool shoeing so the line can properly "spool off" the reel.

I hope these tips will help you in your angling adventures and tournament standings.

Great Fishin',
Capt Shawn Foster
fosterss@cfl.rr.com