Braided lines overview: Other braid types
Plain braid has four weak points: it floats, it throws wind knots, it fades, and it wears badly on hard surfaces. Each newer type below fixes one of them and pays for it somewhere else.
| Type | How it is made | What it fixes | What it costs | Sizes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sinking PE | Heavier fibre blended in (polyester or fluoro), or a weighted coating | Wind and current bow; true vertical drops | No line watching; the priciest braid; coated versions lose their sink; snags bottom | PE 0.5–2.5 |
| Fused superline (e.g. FireLine) | PE fibres fused into one body, no carriers | No wind knots, ice, cold | Stiff; only 4–30 lb; splits white and fuzzy where damaged; FG will not grip | 4–30 lb |
| Dacron braid | Braided polyester (≈1.38 SG), not PE | Backing, trolling cushion, hand-lining tip-ups | Thick, stretchy, no feedback, holds water | 20–80 lb |
| Solution-dyed PE (colourfast) | Colour built into the fibre before spinning | Colour and markers last longer | Costs more; colourfast ≠ strength-fast | — |
| Cored builds (e.g. x13 = 12 carriers + 1 core) | A braided jacket over a core | Rounder, more solid | A bigger number is not an upgrade; read the construction | — |
| Heavily coated general braid | x4 or x8 with a thick coating, sold by lb | Cheap; manageable for the first month; beginner-friendly | Back to bare braid once the coating wears; diameter usually mono-equivalent | 10–80 lb |
| x12 and up | More, finer bundles | Rounder, quieter | No public side-by-side data on the gain over x8 | PE 0.6–2.0 |
Two ways to make braid sink: know which you bought
| Blended heavy fibre | Weighted coating | |
|---|---|---|
| Where the density is | In the fibre | In the surface coating |
| After wear | Still sinks | Floats more with use |
| Diameter at the same PE number | Product-specific | Thicker |
| On the box? | Rarely: read the construction | Rarely |
- Denser is not always better: a line only slightly heavier than water sinks slowly, and a line that sinks too fast in current drags the lure off its path.
- Only need the last 2 m (2 yd) under water? An x8 with a fluorocarbon leader does that far more cheaply than a sinking main line.
One table: choose braid by technique
| Technique | Choose | Size | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clear-water smallmouth finesse: drop shot, Ned, Neko, wacky, hair jig | x8 | PE 0.6–1.0 | Fluorocarbon |
| Spinning with casting lures: jerkbaits, flukes, spybaits, light swimbaits | x8 | PE 1.0–1.5 | Fluorocarbon |
| Big swimbaits, glides | x8 | PE 2.0–3.0 | 30–40 cm bite leader |
| Pike and muskie casting | x8 or general braid | PE 3–8 (50–80 lb) | Wire or 40–100 lb FC |
| Frogs, punching, flipping, swim jigs | x4 or general braid | PE 3–8 (40–80 lb) | Tie direct |
| Windy open-water drop shot, hover rigs, vertical walleye jigs, deep jerkbaits | Sinking PE | PE 0.5–1.5 | FC, the short end |
| Ice, light spinning for perch and crappie, cold-water blade baits | Fused line | 4–14 lb | FC or tie direct |
| A first braid, one spool for the whole boat | General braid | 10–50 lb | As the rows above |
| Backing, trolling, tip-ups | Dacron | 20–80 lb | Bite leader on tip-ups |
- "Superline" is a marketing umbrella, not a material: one brand can sell both fused line and braid.
← Leaders and knots · Spooling and troubleshooting →
Braided lines overview
Braid in six tables: carrier count, PE number vs lb, colour, leaders and knots, other braid types, spooling and troubleshooting.