Fireline Braid: Drawing the lines
Are you sick and tired of braid digging into the spool of your reel? Or casting into knots that are completely impossible to get out? Of course you are—and Berkley knew it, so they’ve come out with a new Fireline that improves upon what was already the greatest line advancement anglers have seen in decades.
The new Fireline Braid features “Radial Construction,” which forms a rounder line. Rounder lines lay onto the spool more uniformly and don’t spill over from one coil on top of another. This prevents the line from digging in, and after spooling up three different reels with this stuff and using it for several months, I haven’t had a single problem in this regard. Wind knots are also definitely reduced. So far I’ve had exactly one using the Fireline Braid, while in the past I would have expected at least three or four over this period of time. This is particularly impressive when you consider that I spent a good deal of that time casting light topwater poppers, which are particularly prone to causing tangles since the line goes slack then taunt then slack again as you retrieve it.
One thing about the new Fireline hasn’t changed a bit: there’s no stretch in this line to speak of, and when a fish so much as sniffs at your lure, you can feel it from a mile away. There’s also no increase in line diameter, and if anything, it’s even thinner when compared to mono. The 15-pound test diameter, for example, compares to four pound monofilament. Forty pound Fireline Braid is the same size as 10-pound test mono. And the 80-pound spools up as if it were 15-pound test. One other characteristic this line shares with the Fireline we’re used to: it doesn’t come cheap. Of course, dedicated braid anglers will find the expense well worth it—especially when they realize how rarely they see line digging into the spool, or casting into wind knots.
Price: $18/110-yards 15-lb. test
The Highs: Doesn’t cut into the spool like most braids. Reduced wind knots.
The Lows: Filling a spool with this stuff is pricey.
Who Wants It: Braid lovers who’ve lost fish, thanks to line digging into the spool and/or wind knots.
Contact: www.berkley-fishing.com
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