Originally Posted by
Dr. Fish
Here's some real life experience I can pass along. While I love to fly fish, I also fish with conventional gear and spend some time chasing yellowfin tuna in the Gulf. I can tell you that without question, fluorocarbon makes all the difference in the world. If you use 50 pound clear monofilament on one rod and 80 pound fluorocarbon (Seaguar) on the other rod, nearly all of your bites will come on the rod with the fluorocarbon leader. Plain and simple. It makes such a difference I have guide buddies down there can spend over $8,000 per year on fluoro instead of going with clear mono at the cost of $500 annually. They don't spend $ when they don't have to.
High quality fluoro has nearly the same refractive index as water which makes it nearly transparent. It's not magic but it absolutely does make a difference when fish are wary. I have seen far too many examples of this over the years both with conventional gear and while fly fishing.
Keep in mind that all flour's are NOT created equal. Some of the major retailers out there force their line suppliers to deliver fluoro to hit lower retails. In order to make that happen, the suppliers need to use lower quality fluoro or fluoro blends. There are a lot of inferior fluoro lines out there that were developed more in hitting a low retail than to perform at a high level. Fluoro sold in larger spools as main line differs in quality and make up over fluoro designed and sold as leader material. Fluoro made specifically to use as a main line (non-fly) is produced to be softer, with less memory which can make it less durable.
Another thing to keep in mind is that a quality fluoro leader will sink 3 times faster than mono so it's not the best choice when fishing dry flies as it can pull the fly down.
Hope this helps some.
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