The weather conditions have made fishing trips a little more challenging lately — hot sunny days often followed up with stormy and windy conditions. Not only can such conditions make sitting in a boat on a lake all day harder to endure, but hot, sunny days can decrease fish activity, and high winds can make casting and line control a nightmare. So, if you opt not to fish, that might be a good time to check out your fishing equipment and update some of the line on your reels.

Speaking of line on reels, the fishing equipment industry has been making a lot of changes, and new and different lines are coming out all the time. In the past couple of years, I, too, have made some changes in what lines I’m using, especially now that plain old monofilament is no longer our only choice. No doubt about it: the monofilament line got the job done for many years, but I think recent changes and improvements to the line have increased casting and catching ability. One of the biggest changes I’ve seen is the introduction of braided line. Now, I haven’t converted all my equipment over to a braided line, but I have replaced monofilament on a half-dozen reels with the new braided line.

So what does braided line offer that monofilament doesn’t? For starters, braided line is much stronger. What’s interesting is that even though it’s stronger, it’s not bigger around. As I write this, I have a spool of 20-pound braided line laying in front of me, and right beside it is a spool of much lighter monofilament, and the diameter of the lines is about the same. In addition, the braided line is much more durable than monofilament because the fiber in the line adds incredible fray and abrasion resistance. The line also seems to release from the spool more smoothly during casting, resulting in longer and more consistent casting.

One of the best features of the braided line that I am becoming more dependent on is that it has no stretch, while the monofilament line does have some stretch. So, what’s the big deal with stretch? In a good deal of the fishing I do, the lures and the techniques I use require that I feel the strike or hit. When I cast, I keep my rod tip up, and I tend to keep loose line out of the equation so I feel the lure as it drops into the depths. With this technique, I can feel the “tap” even while the lure is dropping and while I’m working it back on the boat. Because of its construction, the braided line seems to telegraph that tap better than the monofilament.

I certainly don’t want to overlook the 100 percent fluorocarbon line, either. This line is also a strong and highly abrasion-resistant line, and it’s less visible underwater than the monofilament line. I don’t know if it’s as low stretch as braided, but it definitely has less stretch than monofilament. Because fluorocarbon offers many of the same features as braided line it too works well when it comes to feeling and detecting strikes. Because it’s less visible underwater, I always attach a length of fluorocarbon to the end of the outfits I have rigged with braided line.

Of course, you want to match the line weight to the species of fish you are after. One of the biggest problems I often see with beginner fishermen is that they are fishing with line that is too heavy for what they are trying to catch. Matching line size and weight to the fish you are after can be another whole story, so I’ll save that for another time.