Anglers Profile

Nylon

Great product, cheap, transparent. Interestingly for many years this was the standard hooklink material. I still think it is capable of catching a great deal of fish, but it appears it is not as fashionable as newer developments. I sometimes think I should use this more.

Braid

Interesting development, not as cheap in fact quite expensive relative to nylon, not transparent, very supple. Created on the belief that carp were feeling the nylon and hence dropping the bait, however it had a nasty habit of tangling and of course it was visible (but suddenly this wasn’t so important), but it now required colour matching with the bottom.

I have found it very useful with PVA bags or PVA mesh tubing though.

Coated hooklinks

Another interesting development to combat the tangling properties of braid, again not cheap and more expensive. Obviously visible and requiring colour matching and hence several different spools required.

Without a doubt it does reduce tangles on the cast! However what happened about the fish feeling the hooklink material and transparency? I do use this quite a lot.

Stiff hooklinks

Another interesting development, braid and coated hooklinks could end up in a pile next to the lead unless using PVA mesh tubing. This was designed to push the bait away from the lead.

Interestingly having tried this in the edge when fishing, I haven’t seen it work with boilies ending up with the hooklink sticking up most of the time, so I now use it with Korda sinkers to stop the hooklink sticking up. It can work with smaller lighter baits. Again what happened about the fish feeling the hooklink material and visibility. I do actually like this stuff on short hooklinks since if not in weed I believe it gives improved contact when the fish is taking the bait.

Fluorocarbon

Quite expensive. I found this development very interesting, supposed to be more invisible in the water, although I have personally found that I don’t buy this, with the fluoro I have tried. It is however heavier and so sinks better than nylon which makes it popular for keeping the line on the bottom and  is far stiffer than nylon.

Must admit that any movement on the water would I believe cause the line to rise up anyway, and suddenly the original problem with nylon being stiff isn’t a problem for fluorocarbon.

I have tried this stuff but personally think it is over rated.

Conclusions

Well without a doubt all of the hooklink materials will catch fish! One can also only marvel at our innovativeness. I have read that fish can’t actually see the bait once it is up close, and they must be used to filtering out a lot of rubbish while feeding, and why the contrasting views about the stiffness of hooklinks? Also the visibility issue? I am left with the thought that in our search to get an edge over the fish, we the anglers are caught by the blurb put out by the marketing people, its a good job we aren't fish!  I have no doubts in my own mind that we would probably catch more if we applied more effort into fish location, avoiding being seen by the fish and prebaiting!