Tip # 26 – Change Your Fishing Line Often
This is one thing that I can say isn’t done enough with my reels. Changing your fishing line is one of the most important things you should be doing. There are a number of reasons to do this, but I’ll just talk about a couple of them for now.
The suns rays will quickly deteriorate your line. Just like any other type of plastic that sees a lot of sun, your fishing line is most likely made of a material that will begin to break down the more it is exposed to the sun. Some fishing lines, and most importantly Fluorocarbon, which is inert and relatively UV resistant, don’t need to be changed quite as often based on exposure to the sun. Regular nylon mono filament fishing lines are the ones that need particular attention when it comes to UV deterioration.
Line twist is a big problem with most fishing lines. This is not directly because of the line, but instead, it is because of the lures we use and the techniques we employ in various fishing situations we find ourselves presented with. If you are casting spoons all day, and you forget to use a swivel, line twist is an even bigger problem. In fact, many anglers have no idea why their fishing line is turning into a birdsnest with every cast. Using spoons and other similar lures without swivels are the number one cause of this.
Finally, and this reason will probably mean the most to a fisherman is that the boredom of not fishing gets to us all. You know, those times you take out the tackle box to organize it, even though it hasn’t been out for weeks or possibly months. Why not pull out your rods and reels and put on some new fishing line? Oh yeah, and polish everything up real nice while you are at it!
Make it an annual thing. At the very least change your line once a year. Thats probably the best advice I can give!
Tight Lines!
I have had the same line on my spin rod for a very very very long time…LOL LOL … thanks for the reminder.
Hey Justin I was just going to say the same thing.
I have a number of fishing rods and I hardly ever change lines.
I only just changed my fly line this year because after 20 years with the same reel I decided to buy a new one and also changed my fly line at the same time. The fly line was more than 10 years old.
I have had the same line on my heavy spinning rod that I took on a trip to Northern Quebec 10 years ago and the line is still on there.
Periodically I have to cut a chunck of the front of the line but it still casts fine so I won’t change it just yet.