Fishing Forum

Hello,

I was recently fishing for stripers and caught a big 22 incher (first one of legal size). After reeling him in I noticed my fishing line was a little chewed up. This was not just on the part of the line that the fish might have rubbed against but the majority of the line. The line is pretty new. This was a pretty big fish and he took a lot of line out before bringing him in so the line was put under a lot of stress. The line isn't chewed up THAT badly but I can feel tiny bumps in it when I run my finger across it. Is that normal? Does the line become a little chewed up after reeling in a big fish? Is this caused by the line rubbing against the rings? I scratched the rod tip a little bit and I hope that the line wasn't getting chewed up because of that. Once again the nicks in the line were barely noticeable but I can imagine that they would build up after catching a lot of big fish. There weren't many underwater objects that could have done this.

Thanks for your help.
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Any number of things can cause a line to frey or disfigure. Most likely happened during the fight. Anytime that happens, you should strip off the damaged piece, and redo your rig. This is especially common bottom fishing and such. You may not realize it, but that larger fish probably dragged that line accross structure at some point, which most likely caused the freying. Also check your rods eyelets. Especially if you're using braid, some rods aren't designed to use braid, which will eventually wear groves in the eyelets just under normal fishing stress. Once those groves are there, the rod is not servicable.
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A few years ago I ran into almost the same thing. The line I had was fairly new and I always check it after a catch. I notice something that felt like frayed sections of line when running the line between my fingers. I was going to cut the bad line off and I kept working back towards the reel and about every foot or foot and a half I notice this. When I almost got to the spool I gave up. I had more line on the bulk spool that this came off of at home so when I got home I starting filling my reel and noticed the same thing on the new line. I contacted Stren customer service and they asked me to send a sample. A couple weeks later I received a new spool of line with a note saying they determined there was a problem with the line.
Just something to think about.
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