Thread: Anyone use braided line for casting jigs?

It's been a year or so since I've bought any but I usually shop Academy, Sportsman and Bass Pro. Some times it's hard to find the hi-viz color though.

It definitely has a place in my arsenal. I use it when casting Roadrunners & Whirly Bees ... 7' med Bionic Blade IM8 rod / Shimano Spirex 2000 reel ... especially when casting them around wood cover. I use PowerPro 10/2 hi-vis and tie directly to the bait.

A couple of other things are needed, IMHO, to make the use of braid a little easier to contend with : a child's size pair of Fiskar scissors & a short section of wood dowel (or towel). The Fiskar scissors will cut braid and leave a blunt tag end, which makes the limp braid easier to poke thru the eyelets of small jigs. And the dowel or towel can be used to wrap the braid around when pulling a hung bait free. Braid, when wrapped around the hand/fingers or even a cork or foam rod handle, will cut deep into them when pulled on hard. I learned that the hard way.

While I do use this "braid" outfit mostly for cast/retrieve with Roadrunners & Whirly Bees ... I have used it for casting jigs. And in order to get the distance needed, when casting these lite jigs, I added a split-shot sinker up the line about 10-12". Without the sinker, using that IM8 rod, I had to be a line watcher to see most strikes ... but, when the sinker was added, even the lite bites felt like serious thumps !! It may have been because the sinker kept the line more taut than a small jig by itself, and the no stretch quality of the braid transmitted that thump through the IM8 graphite rod more efficiently than when the braid was limp from the small weight of the jig alone. But ... I do know it was 10 times easier to feel the strike. And that's coming from someone that prefers to "see" the strike, rather than feel it.

Braid works for everything,only thing I have on my poles