Should You Use Mono When Spooling Your Spinning Reel With Braid?
- By: Luke Simonds
- on
Should you use monofilament when spooling your spinning reel with braid?
That’s a great question because you definitely don’t want to tie braid directly onto your reel.
Even with “braid ready” spinning reels, there’s a good chance that your braid could slip if you have a big fish on, which could lead to the fish easily spooling you.
There are two ways to effectively tie braid onto your spinning reel and in this video, you’re going to learn how to do both.
One way (the way I use and recommend) is a fail-proof way of attaching braid to your spinning reel that even saves you money, and the other way is a shortcut that may or may not work in the long run.
Let’s dive in!
Spooling Spinning Reels With Braid [VIDEO]
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Since it’s a bad idea to tie braid directly to your spinning reels, here are two popular ways to spool your reel with braid:
Strategy #1: Tie electrical tape to the arbor.
The problem with tying braid directly to your spinning reel is that it doesn’t grip into the arbor (the center of the spool) and may slip under pressure.
One way to combat that is to wrap electrical tape around the arbor so your reel has something to grip in to.
That can usually work for a time, but I have heard of the tape eventually slipping, so I don’t recommend this.
Which takes us to the next way to spool your spinning reel with braid…
Strategy #2: Add a base layer of monofilament to your spool before tying on braid.
This is the best strategy for two reasons:
Reason #1: Monofilament will dig into the arbor so it’ll virtually never slip.
Reason #2: Monofilament is cheaper so you can fill your reel with line more cost-effectively.
Just put 50-100 yards of mono on your reel first, then tie a line to line knot to connect the mono to your braid, and put about 100-150 yards of braid on to fill up the rest of the reel.
Since all you need for inshore fishing is about 100-150 yards of line anyway, the mono usually never gets any action and therefore lasts a very long time.
Once it’s time for me to re-spool, I just take the braid off and tie new braid onto the existing mono, which makes it much cheaper to re-spool my reels.
Conclusion
Although you don’t have to put mono backing on your spinning reels, I definitely recommend it over using something like tape.
This is because it’ll never slip and it’s much cheaper to spool your reel this way.
You can get the monofilament I use for my spinning reels from our shop here.
Have any questions about spooling your spinning reels?
Do you use mono backing?
Let me know down in the comments!
And if you know someone who needs to put new line on their spinning reels, please TAG or SHARE this with them!
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“You can get the monofilament I use for my spinning reels from our shop here.” link does not work.
any problem with 20 pound mono and a double uni?
The bulk of a 20 lb mono uni in the spool can cause some issues in casting unless you have at least 100+ yards of braid over it.
What line-to-line knot do you use Luke for this purpose?
For light lines (10 lbs and under), I use the double uni knot. Otherwise, I use the FG knot.
I have done mono to braid and braid by itself by simply tying braid, add the thick white tape cut 1/4” right at edge of knot and wrap 3 times then one more tape same size opposite side and never had a slip from bull reds or even a giant drum that took out so much line I thought I hooked Moby Dick.
Cool! I have never heard of that before.
Sounds like another potential SS test.
Hello. I have discovered that although using backing does save on the amount of braid needed to fill the spool, The line to line knot can affect casting once enough line has been used up, effectively creating a need to change the line out earlier. So which is better? Using less line and swapping out sooner or just filling the spool with braid and a no slip tape which will last a bit longer?
Since casting distance gets harmed as the gap from the outer band of braid to the outer edge of the spool gets larger, I believe that it’s better to replace the smaller amount of line more frequently is the answer.
For best results, having roughly 150 yards of braid as topshot will ensure that the line to line knot in the spool will only impact casting distance once way too much line is missing.
I have always used mono backing and saw one of your videos not long ago where you reuse the braid from the other end. I haven’t had reason to change braid yet because most all my reels are spooled with new but I definitely am going to do that.
Sounds good!
For many years I have used waterproof adhesive tape on my spinning reels with braid. I buy 1-in wide tape and trim it to fit the size of the reel spool. I give it two wraps. I’ve never had any problem with slippage.
Thank you for all you guys do to make fishing exciting and fun. Keep up the good work.
Stay safe in this difficult time for our country and families.
Bob
Thanks for making time to leave the comment Robert!