OK you superbraid fans, let's see which line gets the most votes from the following selection. Feel free to post what you like and don't like about the various ones you have tried. Particularly interested in the comments of anyone who has tried the new Stren line.

Can the guy who voted for Stren corroborate whether or not the manufacturer's "new and improved" claims are really true?

My favorite was the whiplash ; I don't think the stealth spider wire is the same as the whiplash .....Ross

Fireline gets my vote. Super easy to work with, very strong, and never ever gets that wrap around the rod tip.

Fish Hawg,
This is off subject but thats a nice looking Suburban you got in your avitar.

Fish Hawg

Spiderwire Stealth is indeed a "resurrection" of Berkley's Whiplash. Seems the product never really took off under that original moniker. Spiderwire bought the rights, renamed it, and added a hi-viz yellow version. It's selling a lot better with the sexier name. Ahhh.... the magic of marketing. Kind of like "silverbright" salmon for dogs. :p

Well, I voted for what turns out to be, as of now, the going away leader, which is not how things always turn out with me.

Now, off topic, who sent in the info. and got the free spool of the new Stren line...what was it?...MagnaFlex, or something like that?

I tried to tie a few leaders with it, and it turned out to be the biggest piece of junk I've ever tried to use as fishing line.

I know that a lot of folks say stuff like that about all kinds of products, but I believe if you looked up all my posts from day one, which was a long time ago, you'll never find a post where I said something that strong. I usually stay out of product threads, but this thread, and the Stren free line offer, have struck a couple of chords with me.

Fish on...

Todd.

Fireline got my vote and PowerPro would be close second.

Whiplash! Still have it on all the level winds, since I found it in Soldotna at Freddys in 2000. Bought two bulk spools after that and regretting not buying more. I did get a free spool of Stealth with the mail in offer,I guess it will have to do, but it doesn't seem the same to me. Either that or it took to much abuse from the reds/kings.
FP
Is this for sure a same product?

Irie1

The guys at Trustworthy Hardware in Soldotna and several guides I know have all said the same thing.... Spiderwire Stealth is just re-packaged Whiplash. I have a spool of Moss Green Whiplash and a new spool of Tracer Yellow Stealth, and the weave in the braid is identical in both lines.

I have been looking rather unsuccessfully for a bright yellow hi-viz superbraid that is colorfast. Western Filaments told me their dye on the TUF Line XP was a vast improvement and would last longer than anything else out there. Well, not so. Even just spooling the stuff onto my reels resulted in the coating flaking off into a powder. The other downside to XP is the weave in the braid.... very coarse. Sounds like sandpaper going thru the guides and cuts skin like a serrated knife.

So far I like the hi-viz Stealth, but like the rest of them, it doesn't hold its color for very long either. Haven't tried PowerPro because they didn't have the yellow stuff at Sportco when I was first looking (that's when I first tried TUF Line XP). Looking at the Cabela's catalog, I see PowerPro sells for half again as much as 300 yd spool of Stealth, and Stren SuperBraid sells for even more.

To economize, I "top-off" my salmon reels with only 75 yds of superbraid. That part gets 99% of the wear and tear while the stuff underneath never sees the light of day. That way I can get three more refills out of one 300 yd spool of superbraid. The rest of the reel is spooled with 30# flyline backing (hollow Dacron) which lasts forever.

Wish there was a 'I haven't used any' selection. I've never used them, but I would like to see the results to see which is everyone's favorite should I decide to try a super braid.

Been halibut/bottomfishing with both Tuffline and Tuff plus for a few years, they both serve their purpose well and I would recommend either, can't imagine ever bottomfishing without the stuff.
I have never tried any of the others mentioned, the resort I work for supplies the Tuff line and as long as they do, I don't really have any reason to switch.

The Stealth/ Whiplash comparison confuses me. Spiderwire Stealth, produced by the same company that made Whiplash (Pure Fishing, which owns a number of various brands including both Spider and Berkley), is quite a bit different from Whiplash. The braiding process is different in that Teflon and other materials are fused to the gel-spun polyethylene as it's woven in Stealth. Whiplash had a tighter braid and is coated after the fact, I believe.

There are other differences, but the PR guy I talked to wasn't as sure as he was about the above.

Both are good lines, but they are different. I like Whiplash for bottomfishing, Stealth for backing on fly reels and in freshwater applications, FireLine in several applications where I think it excels. They're all tools, and should be used that way.

Keith

Has anyone tried the hi-viz new Stren? They claim that the colors don't fade. Power Pro is my favorite but a couple times a year I have to take a permanent marker to it so it has some color. I like PP because it stays round and doesn't turn into dental floss like the other braids. Being round it also doesn't give you as many line cuts either.

Spectra fiber is notoriously difficult to color permanently. In other applications, it gets wrapped with nylon or polyester to provide abrasion protection and coloration. I kind of like the non-permanent color -- when I see white, I figure that section has some wear to it so I cut back to green.

BTW, we snapped a blackmouth off of 80# Whiplash yesterday, by accidently running the line along the edge of one of the swimstep brackets, so this stuff will cut fairly easily. I guess thats's a pretty stupid trick to try with any line, though

Regards.

Finegrain
Woodinville

When we were deciding what braid to use for Halibut, line diameter was as big a concern for us as any other factor. Here in WA we typically fish a little deeper than you guys up north so you can see were this is relevent.
We decided on power pro simply because I took a micrometer to all the popular braids, and of the ones I measured, PP obviously was the thinnest on average.
It has held up well, doesn't have the "dig into itself" problems I've had with other braids.
One thing about TUF line that I do really, really like is the price per yard.
Through a guide program discount from a certain retailer, TUF is about 15% cheaper for me than the PP is per yard.
I just stick with it because I can squeeze more of it on a reel, and confidence.
We use 80lb on 340gti's with pelagic series loomis stand-up rods. 30lb on our inshore bottomfish rods.
(Voted PP)

J.D.

I got a spool of Stren superbraid in 10# hi vis a few weeks ago. When I was spooling it on my reel I felt little lumps on the line as it was going through my fingers. I stopped and looked at it with a magnifying glass an found it had small deformed frayed spots at random throughout its length. I sent it back to for a refund.

Been using Power Pro for several years now salmon fishing and I have no reason to switch and no complaints. I do change it every couple of seasons, after I have stripped it down to about 50 yards or so left on top of the mono backing - it does wear out but so does everything as much as I fish . I buy it in bulk spools and put on maybe 100 yards at a time.

The only fish I have ever lost to a mainline break on Power Pro came this summer, when I was doing something stupid like strip-casting for summer steelhead using 10 pound PP (that's 2 pound diameter ) with my fly rod on some sour summer steelhead that I could only interest with a slightly weighted fly bounced off their nose from long distance - I was using a stike indicator as a float and fishing probably 30 yards above them to stay out of sight. Well, one hog about 3 feet long finally ate my fly, and after nearly cleaning me out first going upstream and then downstream I had him worked up to the bank, when he caught his second wind, ran me around the one little stick out in the middle of the pool, and ran me back upstream. I finally waded out over my boots to loosten my line from the snag, but by then about 50 yards of line was frayed, and when I finally came up tignt on him it parted readily. So don't use the real skinny stuff where it can be abraded, and you will be ok.

power pro, there is no substitute. One thing many don't do is keep a few extra reels around that have been reworked or freshly cleaned and detailed. Then rotate your reels, by rotate I mean take the full reel and put a backing on it to prevent line spin and digging. Then attach the end of the line to the fresh reel and reel it on. I use my power pro two seasons. For backing I use 12 pound maxima that way if you hook a sturgeon while springer fishing the backing breaks and not your 300.00 favorite springer rod. Been doing this six or seven years, works awesome.Another helpful hint is buy the 1500 yard spools, this way you and your fishing partners can divide up the cost, way cheaper

Well the board has spoken... PowerPro by more than a 2:1 margin over all others combined.

Time to place my order!

Thank you one and all.