Deer hair bass bug problem

[Buddy Sanders]

Frank,

First time in over forty years I've heard someone say that nylon does not absorb water.

By aBsorb, what I mean is that the moisture enters the material and causes it to relax and stretch more and stretch easier.

Nylon fishing lines (monofilaments), aBsorb water and stretch more when wet.

Nylon fabric stretches more when it gets wet. Just ask any soldier that's ever had to get their cot set up properly...wet the fabric, it will stretch into place more easily. Same deal with nylon truck bed covers, convertable tops, etc.

Nylon threads do the same thing, at least all the ones I have do. If you think it doesn't, go ahead and test it.

Buddy

[Ray Kunz]

Nylon does absorb water. In fact, more than any other plastic. - up to hundreds of times more. SEE WEBSITE BELOW.
http://www.machinist-materials.com/c...r_plastics.htm

[aged_sage]

Ray and Buddy:

Mea culpa. However, this is the very first time I have heard of it ABSORBING water in the 50 + years I have been acquainted with it. After Buddy's comments, I did check out the scientific/technical literature on it and did find that it does ABSORB water, but only minimally, as shown in the table Ray provided.. However, did not see anything that confirmed the claim that wet nylon stretches more than dry. Am pursuing that point further.

Cheers,
Frank

[Buddy Sanders]

Frank,

I'd be interested to hear what you find on this.

I'm wondering if the perception is the reality here. I do know that the cot and cover anology is true, since I've done that myself and found that the nylon fabric does stretch more (or at least easier) when it's wet.

For many years, professional bass fishermen would wrap a wet folded paper towel around their spinning reel spools the night before a tournament to relax the line so it would handle easier. I know it worked because I did it a lot. This was back before those neat new sprays that accomplish the same job in minutes.

We always believed that you'd have to set the hook hard to overcome the stretch of the mono. Many anglers would change rods or reels periodically to get to fresh 'dry' mono since the theory was that it would stretch less than mono that had been in the water all day.

I know we 'believed' this, but I've not seen any test data or inforamtin from any studies done on it. Would be interesting to know for sure.

Thanks,

Buddy

[aged_sage]

Buddy:

I may have the answer to this, though I still have not found anything on wet nylon stretching mote than dry. The manufactures now produce two types of nylon; "hard" which only stretches about 10-15 %, and "soft" which can stretch as much as 40%, but apparently typically more in the 25% range. The original was a "soft'. This is why you had to try to "jerk his head off" to set the hook when a bass hit. Now I know why a buddy, who was a professional guide back in the '60's, would nearly fall out of the boat backwards when he set the hook---40% stretch? Geeze!! I have used the "hard" type for years for snag guards, but never knew the true definition of "hard". It is stiffer is all that I knew until I read this yesterday. Haven't given up on the wet/stretch point yet but haven't given up. My time to persue has been drastically reduced as I got selected for jury duty last Tuesday, and looks like I will "in court" all week this week, and maybe into next.

Cheers,
Frank

[Buddy Sanders]

Frank,

My condolences. I hate to have to go to jury duty. I know it's important, but I end up sitting there all day, and I never get picked to actually be on a jury.

As far as the different types of mono goes, they have made tremendous advances in the years since I left competitive fishing. Stretch is way down, knot strength is way up. And it keeps getting better. The new flourocarbon lines are amazing.

Buddy