Best backing for saltwater

[LeRoy]

Thanks for the advice, Jono! I'm gonna stick with the backing I have on the reel at the moment until I find something that looks and feels right. But I'll take your advice and steer clear of the floss! There's quite a few braids available locally. I'll go have a looksee and post what I find. When I do make a purchase, I'll experiment with knots on an old piece of fly line, and post if I have problems. I normally use an albright knot to connect both leader and backing to fly line. "Correctly" seated, I find it looks a bit odd, but slips through the guides with ease, in both directions, and you can go ahead and pull, son, it won't come apart. I was thinking to connect the braid to the fly line, take a short piece of normal backing, double it and albright it to the fly line to form a loop at the end of the line, then just loop to loop the braid onto that..?

[Jono Shales]

The less knots and connections you have in the system the better.

An albright is a great knot, but with 20lb braid it'll cut straight into the flyline. Using an albright for the leader to flyline is no probs becuase the leader is nice and thick compared to the ultra thin braid.

There's a lot of discussions on various forums with regards to the best way to attach backing to flyline. Basically what you want is to get the braid backing into a loop or a double loop as per my suggestion above. This way when you loop to loop you don't have any issues with it cutting into anything because the braid is doubled over.

[LeRoy]

Thanks for all the advice, Jono! Much appreciated! As I said I'm sticking with my old system for now, it's worked just fine until now, and I'm pretty sure I can handle anything upto around 4 or 5 kilos with eighty metres of backing, which is good enough for me! In the meantime I'll do some research as to what alternative backing materials are available locally, and when the time comes round again that I have the bucks to spare, I'll post again if I have any problems knot-wise and so on. I'm spending the money I would have spent on braid on my wife rather, which will ensure that I won't be doing dishes when I should be chasing fishes! Cheers!

[Jason]

Good call on the money for swambo. Nothing as soul destroying as having new toys and not being able to play with them.

[Jason]

Just to confirm. Would the best knot to connect fly line to standard 20lb backing be an albright knot?

[LeRoy]

Jason, I'm not saying it's the best knot (if I can get some proper 50lb dacron to make braided loops I'd prefer that..) but that's what I've used and what I'm gonna use again. It looks a bit ungainly, to say the least, but it's super strong and slips through the guides with ease. I agree with Jono that it's a stupid idea to tie braid directly to fly line with an albright, but it works very well for standard 20lb backing. Just wet it properly when you seat it, and seat it slowly and carefully, otherwise it's a bulbous mess of a useless fat knot. If you pull too hastily when seating the knot, the backing will also dig into the fly line and stuff it all up. But with care and patience, and one or two practice rounds (an old piece of fly line to just test the knot on first, helps a lot..) you'll get the idea. You want the knot to be straight (no hinge effect between fly line and backing) and as small as possible in order to slip through the rod guides easily. Properly done, it isn't any more bulky than the old standard nail knot, and there's naught that will pull it apart. I leave a 2 or 3 mm tag end on the backing, and cut the fly line tag off flush. It's the only fly line to backing/leader knot that I have had no problems with. Hope that helps!

[Jason]

Thanks bud that does help. Gonna redo all my knots tonight...just for gitts and shiggles

[swsmith]

I have braid on one of my spools.I have a braided loop on the end of my fly line and connect it to that.no problems with that knot.loop to loop i think

[LeRoy]

Howzit Steve..

I saw that spool of yours.. you have a mile of backing on there and yet the spool still looks half empty! So what brand is it you use, if you don't mind?

Cheers!