Comment by munificent | Hacker News Reader

Comment by munificent | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

This is a complicated question.

In general, yes, you can absolutely put strong enough line on that will let you haul a fish straight out of the water dangling from it. It you fish for small fish (perch, bluegill, etc.), that's basically what you do every time. They are small enough that even the lightest line will still hold them.

The challenge, though, is that the stronger the line is, the more visible it is to the fish, and the less finesse you have when fishing with it. More visible line can spook fish and get you fewer bites. And a thicker, stiffer line can make it harder for you to work the lure in a realistic way that entices fish to bite.

So you're always making the trade-off where lighter line means more bites but a greater risk of not landing the fish if it breaks the line. Stronger lines mean fewer bites but if you get a hookset, you can probably land the fish.

There are other complications too: fish aren't the only thing in the water. Stronger line can help you not lose lures if it gets tangled on branches or other obstructions.

On the other hand, lighter line is more fun to fish with. You feel what the fish is doing much more clearly and the fight is more interactive. Catching a small fish using a big stiff fishing rod with heavy line feels like listening to music with earplugs in. You lose a lot of the experience.

Also, there are different kinds of line: monofilament, fluorocarbon, braid. And you don't have to use the same kind of line for the whole length. Sometimes it makes sense to have a leader (a short section of line at the end) that's lighter or heavier than your main line.

One of the delights of fishing is that it's an endless problem-solving exercise in gear optimization.

Just to add on a bit more, there is a saying (more among fly fisherman), "the tug is the drug". Some people get a thrill knowing they are at the limit of their gear and find that heightened sense of excitement to be pleasurable, not knowing what is going to happen. I imagine it is like gamblers watching roulette.

This is also why some guys like to pike fish on ultralight gear.

Not just the line, but the rod too. As a kid, we always thought we landed a "big one" by the way the poles would bend. It wasn't until I was older that my dad told me about kids poles made that way just to increase the excitement. Just the slightest nibble on the bait would cause the pole to bend significantly.

I basically only fish using ultralight gear and it has that same property. A little palm-sized bluegill bends the rod like I hooked a shark. It's fun.

Yup, I once worked in a 18lb freshwater drum on 6lb rated line. Took me about 1/2 hour. Was in a dam spillway with some noticeable current. Both the fish and I was worn out. And the poor dude was thrown back in, they aren't really very eatable.

That's a life-long memory right there.

Now I'm imagining a heavy line that is actually multiple parallel strands, somehow treated so that in air they will curl and stick together, but when submerged they separate into multiple filaments that are harder for fish to see. (Converging, of course, onto the hook.)

'Course, then they'll probably snag all the time.

There's an easier solution: Make transparent line with a refractive index as close to water's as you can get. That's what fluorocarbon line is, as I understand it.

It has some downsides, though: it's a little stiffer and thus harder to tie knots in. It's less resistant to abrasion (being dragged over rocks, etc.). But it mostly disappears in water.

That's what fluorocarbon line is, as I understand it.

That's my understanding as well. That said, I hate fluoro line, especially on spinning reels, as the extra stiffness gives it a tendency to want to come off the spool already. Add in any extra "weird" factor like a badly timed gust of wind when casting, and you wind up with a big tangled birds-nest of line wrapped all around your reel. :-(

OTOH, there's a another "superline" formulation out there, that is made of the same material as braided line, but it's fused instead of braided together. The Berkley Fireline Crystal version claims to be nearly invisible in water (similar to fluoro) while still having the strength, suppleness, etc. of braid. I've been using it for a while and have been pretty happy with it.

Yeah, I've heard enough mixed things about fluoro that I haven't tried it yet. I almost exclusively fish for panfish using ultralight gear, so I just stick with mono like I've been using since I was a kid.

That Fireline looks interesting.

Yeah, if you're fishing for panfish it probably doesn't matter a whole lot. And truth be told, the extreme suppleness of braid does sometimes cause its own issues - for example, I find that braid is more likely to get tangled up in/around your terminal tackle on a bad cast (or again, due to a wind gust, etc). For example, I mean cases where your line gets caught up in the treble hooks on a jerkbait or crankbait or something, or gets caught up in the blades on a spinerbait, stuff like that.

I appreciate the detailed answer but that wasn't really my question. I wanted to know, in regards to material science, how much stronger we would have to make a regular fishing line of typical diameter using a future material, not how big a line we would have to use. Would it have to be twice as strong? Ten times as strong?

> I wanted to know, in regards to material science, how much stronger we would have to make a regular fishing line of typical diameter using a future material,

That line already exists today. Fishing line is measured in breaking strength, so a 10 lb. line should reliably be able to withstand 10 pounds of force before it snaps. (In practice, it's less because knots are always the weak point. Also, it's a gamble as to whether a manufacturer accurately measures their line's strength.)

Gravity exerts a force in the same unit, so if you want a line that will let you lift a 50 pound fish out of the water, 50 pound line will do it. Maybe 60 or 70 to give yourself a margin of error and account for the fish's thrashing. The line will be somewhat thicker than lighter-weight line, but not enormously so.

So the literal answer to your question is just: Go to the store and buy a line whose test weight is somewhat above the weight of the fish and you'll able to muscle it onto the boat without having to tire the fish out first. Your local fishing store will have line heavy enough to do that for almost all fish.

The obvious follow-up question, then, is, if you can just go to the store and buy that, why don't anglers do so? And my comment is mostly an answer to that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com