Windtamer

Adventure Location: Rockport, Texas
Teams Location: Rockport, Texas

Joining the modern way of fishing is not hard once my head gets straight that it could be a good thing. For about a hunnert years the fishing line of preference has been Stren or Trilene XL.  It has always worked very well.  Consistent performance was a gift that was appreciated. Many a fish, or is that a few fish, has been harvested with that great old standby. 

For several years now the fishing articles have been filled with great praises of braid or fluorocarbon lines doing fantastic things.  BUT when the internet was carefully researched on the subject it seems that some folks had good reasons to stick with monofilament line.  Some of those reasons seemed to be very valid.

Lately more research was very interesting. All the articles with objections had date lines of four years ago or older.  None with objections were found from the last two years.  That got me to wondering why.  So it was off to Tackle Town to see what the experienced folks had to say on the subject.

Fundamentally the story for there is that up until about four years ago the objections were valid and compromises had to be made on the characteristics you needed and what you could get by with. Now the lines had developed to the point that most of the objections were corrected.

The finale of the event was that the OFM Fishing Team took the advice of the knowledgeable person and purchased some of the new style braid line.

The tried and proven old line is on the left.  On the right is the newfangled stuff.  It is a HUGE AMOUNT THINNER but STRONGER than the old line. Yeah right was my thought. Prove it before I believe it. So the new stuff was put on one reel to be given the opportunity to prove it is better.  Bright yellow was chosen so that it would be better in the visibility department.

The proof is in after two hard days in serious wind.  The Windtamer casts much better than the old mono. After fouling a lure on a submerged rock, it was found that it is a huge effort stronger when you are trying to break it.  The new line has been totally flawless in performance except in one area.  You absolutely must lubricate (spit on it) the line to make a knot cinch up properly.  It will not make up correctly without the lubrication.  In fact it has been noticed that letting it sit for a few seconds before tightening the knot makes things go much easier. 

The knot strength, as represented by the force required to break it off from a rock, is very good. A down side is that the line is so thin that holding it with your hand to pull hard is likely to leave you with some line buried in your new wound.

Windtamer has definitely replaced mono as the OFM Fishing Teams line of choice. It is nice when a product really does what it is supposed to do. Windtamer is now on both of my reels.

During the line testing down at the harbor, a really funny looking boat was noticed moored to the bulkhead.

Betcha that devil will really fly across the water!

Fishing line testing makes for a great day of trying to have tooooo much fun. TheOFM.