LINE STRETCH
TESTS
A - Methodology
With so much b.s. (aka advertising) floating around on the subject of line stretch, I figured if I was to get straight facts I was going to have to get them myself. In order not to add to the confusion, I did my best to ensure the results were as rigorous as possible even given my limited resources. The next section describes in detail how I proceeded so that if you feel so inclined, you can do the same tests and compare your results with mine and broaden the amount of data available.
1 – Standard stretch test weight = 2 kilograms
I selected 2 kilos as the standard reference weight for two main reasons: I could test relatively weak lines and still get results, yet reach into a range that is meaningful in everyday fishing. If you try to lift a two kilo weight off the floor with your rod, you’ll realize that’s actually a lot of weight! Except to straighten out the hooks on lures you want to save from an early death, I doubt very much you exert that much pressure on your line while fishing, unless you’re fishing for tuna.
Line tests where a line is stretched until it breaks struck me as inappropriate for our purposes since they don’t really tell us much about a line’s ability to provide a good long-distance hookset, transmit vibrations well or detect nibbles. I personally try to keep well within my line’s limitations when fighting a fish so that I don’t have it stretching all the way to its breaking point. The tests that Shallow Water Angler[1] ran show that the amount of stretch reached just before breaking are nothing like what happens during normal usage unless you’re pulling stumps or trying to straighten 4X hooks.
2 – Tested length = 1.5
meters
Ideally, I would have preferred 3 or 4 meters of line length in order for any differences to stand out more clearly. But I have to do the testing inside, hanging the lines from the ceiling and the very thought of taking measurements at floor level had my back screaming in anticipation. Not having the proper equipment (and room) to do horizontal stretching with guaranteed repeatability of results eliminated that option. Finally, the differences were significant enough between groups and individual results shouldn’t be considerer anyway.
3 – Pre-adjustment with
a 6 grams weight
In order to make sure the tested length was accurate, a slight amount of tension was put on the line to measure the initial length; this was done in order to eliminate any residual kinks or coils. I assumed 6 grams, while sufficient for that purpose, was not large enough to create any amount of distortion in the line prior to the stretch measurements and have a negative impact on the accuracy of the results.
4 – Proper knot
There still remained the problem of using a knot that would not slip in the slightest, let alone break during the tests. The following procedure was used to ensure accuracy.
a) Double Uniknots were used (this knot provides 100% strength and the line will not break at the knot when it does finally break).
b) The knots were well lubricated and carefully tied.
c) The tags were cut off right next to the knot so that any amount of slipping would result in the knot untying itself and failing (this never occurred during the tests)
5 – Dry tests
Evidently, it would have been closer to real life to test the lines after soaking them in water for a while. On the other hand, the added complexity would have taken things past the point of what my patience (and my wife’s) could handle. So I’ll leave that to somebody who needs to stay out of trouble for a while until spring. In the meantime, you can check the Shallow Water Angler tests mentioned previously. They show an increase of approximately 20% for soaked monofilament – with significant variations. Fluorocarbons and superlines show only very slight changes when soaked.
6 – Sample size
The size of the sample
and the way it was constituted does not allow any valid conclusions to be drawn
for individual lines.
While the total number of tested lines is substantial, individual brands for a given line test are only present once in most cases, with a couple being represented by a pair of specimens. One doesn’t need to have a deep knowledge of statistics to realize that a sample of one or two is utterly meaningless. Add to this the fact that I can have no idea of the age and storage conditions of the samples to make any attempt at generalizing for individual brand/line test combination misleading.
Reasonably reliable
conclusions can only be drawn from group data.
While still not up to true scientific methods standards, I believe some conclusions can reasonably be drawn for group data. The fact that the specimens came from all kinds of sources that were known to me pretty much negates any attempt at manipulating the results. The size of the group samples is also significant enough to make some conclusions viable.
Altogether, the number of lines as well as the conditions for the tests makes the results definitely more reliable than the kind of observations anglers can make while fishing, which may lead to interesting insights, but are definitely not systematic enough to be considered as anything but anecdotal.
B – Results
Line
|
Test
|
Stretch
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
#10 |
.5cm |
|
Spiderwire Fusion |
#10 |
.5cm |
|
|
#14 |
.5cm |
|
|
#20 |
.5cm |
|
|
#65 |
.5cm |
|
Spiderwire Stealth |
#65 |
.5cm |
|
Sufix Performance Braid |
#10 |
1cm |
|
TUFline XP |
#15 |
1cm |
|
Spiderwire Stealth |
#20 |
1.5cm |
|
Stren Super Braid |
#20 |
1.5cm |
|
Spiderwire Braid |
#30 |
1.5cm |
|
|
#65 |
1.5cm |
|
Stren Super Braid |
#14 |
2cm |
|
Stren Super Braid |
#14 |
2cm |
|
Remington Power-Lokt |
#40 |
2cm |
|
Rapala Titanium |
#30 |
2.5cm |
|
|
#4 |
3cm |
|
Power Pro |
#10 |
3cm |
|
TUFline Plus |
#18 |
3cm |
|
Cabela’s Ripcord |
#20 |
3.5cm |
|
|
#30 |
3.5cm |
|
TUFline Plus |
#30 |
3.5cm |
|
Spiderwire Braid |
#10 |
5cm |
|
|
#20 |
5cm |
|
Spiderwire Braid |
#20 |
5cm |
|
|
#30 |
8cm |
|
|
#17 |
9.5cm |
|
|
#14 |
11.5cm |
|
P-Line
CXX X-Strong |
#20 |
11.5cm |
|
Super
Silver Thread |
#17 |
12cm |
|
Stren
Extra-Strength |
#20 |
12cm |
|
Stren Fluorocarbon |
#12 |
12.5cm |
|
Stren
Sensor |
#14 |
12.5cm |
|
|
#14 |
12.5cm |
|
Red
Wolf |
#8 |
13cm |
|
Stren
Extra Strength |
#8 |
13cm |
|
Shakespeare
Cajun Red Cast |
#8 |
13cm |
|
|
#12 |
13cm |
|
Rapala
Finesse |
#12 |
13cm |
|
Super
Silver Thread |
#14 |
13cm |
|
Stren
Original |
#17 |
13cm |
|
|
#14 |
13.5cm |
|
|
#14 |
13.5cm |
|
P-Line CX Premium* |
#15 |
13.5cm |
|
Seaguar Carbon Pro |
#20 |
13.5cm |
|
|
#14 |
14cm |
|
Maxima
Chameleon |
#15 |
14.5cm |
|
Shakespeare
Cajun Red Cast |
#14 |
14.5cm |
|
|
#15 |
14.5cm |
|
Stren
Original |
#12 |
15cm |
|
|
#14 |
15cm |
|
|
#8 |
15cm |
|
Bass
Pro Shops Tourney |
#14 |
15.5cm |
|
|
#8 |
16cm |
|
|
#8 |
16cm |
|
Stren
Original |
#8 |
16cm |
|
Seaguar Carbon Pro |
#15 |
16cm |
|
P-Line Fluoroclear |
#8 |
17cm |
|
|
#4 |
17cm |
|
P-Line CX Premium* |
#8 |
17.5 |
|
Stren
Magnaflex |
#8 |
18cm |
|
Super
Silver Thread |
#8 |
18.5cm |
|
Rapala
Long Cast |
#6 |
19.5cm |
|
|
#6 |
20cm |
|
|
#12 |
20cm |
|
Bass
Pro Shops Tourney |
#10 |
20.5cm |
|
Stren
Original |
#6 |
21cm |
|
|
#6 |
21cm |
|
Shakespeare
Sigma |
#8 |
21cm |
|
|
#8 |
21cm |
|
|
#4 |
22.5cm |
|
|
#6 |
24cm |
|
Trilene
XL |
#4 |
26cm |
Group color codes:
Fusion
Braid
Fluorocarbon and
fluorocarbon coated*
Mono
C - Interpretation
1 – The first thing that may strike you is the position of fluorocarbon lines. On top of their reputed invisibility, they are often touted for their low stretch characteristics in advertisements and articles as well as on fishing forums. They are sometimes even compared to superlines in that respect. Yet one can see that the range of the stretch results for lines of that type overlaps that of monos and is quite far from that of the superlines. Previous tests did give the same kind of results, but one could imagine that new formulations of fluorocarbon or different manufacturing techniques might have changed the situation and support the makers’ claims. These new results certainly don’t point in that direction.
On the other hand, those same tests indicated that
fluorocarbon lines did not become stretchier after being soaked in water, as
opposed to what happens to regular nylon monos. This gives them a global
increase in their resistance to stretch of approximately 20% compared to monos.
Yet even if one applies this factor to the present test, fluorocarbons do not
clearly show a superior resistance to stretch when wet compared to mono. And
since superlines are not affected significantly by soaking, they remain much
less stretchy than fluoros, even under those conditions.
2 – Also noticeable is the fact that lines of the fusion type have practically no stretch at all, surpassing even braids in this respect.
Another set of observations does not appear in the results because they can’t be adequately quantified and/or data were not systematically recorded in all cases: I noticed “older” superlines seemed to be the ones with the largest amount of stretch; the two Spiderwire Braids with the most stretch and the #4 Fireline illustrate the case in point. It’s impossible to be very accurate, but lines that were visibly discolored and had lost some or all of their coating had more stretch than what would have been expected from the general pattern.
Once I had started to pay attention to this phenomenon, I
further noticed that the braids that came with little or no coatings when new,
such as Western Filament’s TUF-Line Plus,
Finally, a close examination of the structure of the two types of superlines brings up another point : the polyethylene microfilaments that make up the superlines are visibly tighter together in the fusion type lines than in the braids since braids have a certain amount of free play between the braided carriers (microfilament bundles), while fusion type lines don’t use carriers.
From the sum of these observations, I’d venture the following hypothesis: as a rule of thumb, the limper a superline is, the more it is likely to stretch. Whether this limpness is the result of a breaking-in process or a characteristic of the line when new doesn’t matter, the result is a bit more stretch. Of course, using the words “more stretch” when comparing superlines is still a very different proposition than if we were talking about stretch as applied to monofilaments, since the absolute amount is still many times smaller.
3 – The impact of line strength on the amount of stretch.
When we look at the various lines’ stated strength, two patterns emerge from the test results: for monofilaments and fluoros, there seems to be a clear and inverse relationship between the lines’ stated strength and the amount of stretch it has. Nothing odd about that, is there? Actually, the opposite would have been surprising. Yet it wouldn’t have been the first time that “common sense” would have been proven wrong if the data had gone in the opposite direction. As we all know, one person’s “common sense” is another person’s prejudice! On the other hand, the rated strength of superlines doesn’t seem related to stretch in any clear way. I suspect this demonstrates the lack of control I had over the previous history of the lines submitted to the tests; this can lead to unreliable results when attempting to draw conclusions from only subsets (and a small one at that) of data rather than the whole of the tests. It may also be that the “limpness” factor noted above is more important than line strength in regards to stretch in the weight range (2 kilos) used for these tests. More and better data is evidently needed before we can draw any definite conclusion in this respect.
Conclusions:
So what does all
this mean in terms of real life, except to prove once again that advertising is
not often very closely related to truth?
First of all,
judging from the number of people who keep repeating that fluoros have very
little stretch, it sure looks as if advertisement is quite effective in shaping
beliefs. After all, even if manufacturers have employees working the on-line
forums, there are still a lot of perfectly honest people who support those
claims and swear they have confirmed them in their personal experience. I
suggest that when advertising is supported by word-of-mouth claims, the beliefs
so generated become strong enough to create unconscious biases that skew
subsequent observations that might contradict them. This points to the main
problem with anecdotal ”proofs” of whatever issue is under discussion at the
time. While psychology has long ago demonstrated this phenomenon, it’s still
surprising to see it present among such hard nosed, down to earth people as
fishermen claim to be. Unless, maybe … we’re just as prejudiced, gullible and
superstitious as the next guy!
Then, if less
stretch is indeed conducive to more sensitivity, we now have a better idea of
the kind of lines that will provide it, as well as the type of lines that will
work against it. We also have some confirmation that the stronger a monofilament
line is, the less it will stretch, and thus be more sensitive.
Still, we haven’t
answered the question about which line has the ideal amount of stretch. Well,
we’re not about to either! We may now know more about the type of line that has
the least amount of stretch, but is stretch in any amount necessarily a bad thing?
There seems to be a general consensus that sensitivity is a good thing, but
there was a time when the general consensus was that the Earth was flat! I
appreciate knowing when a fish barely grazes my lure, but then I may jerk it
away before the fish actually has the lure inside it’s mouth. For sure,
stretchy lines are next to useless when trying to set the hook from a distance,
but is the lack of stretch a good thing in all situations? A point can be made
that when fishing action lures like crankbaits closer, some “give” on the
hookset is a plus. What if different circumstances call for a different amount
of stretch? The nearer and the more violent the fight, the more you may want
the line to act like a shock absorber, wouldn’t you (unless you were using a
rod that provided it)? But then, are we going to go back and forth between
different kinds of lines all the time? Isn’t changing between the various ways
of setting the hook or fighting the fish that are appropriate to different
lines going to get us so completely mixed up that we’ll wind up missing fish
and losing them all the time?
As you can see,
we’re still a very long way from answering the question of which is the “best”
line if such a thing does indeed exist. You’ll just have to apply your own criteria
when evaluating the facts we’re managed to gather about line stretch and come
up with your own answers for your own situation.
Fishingelbow