chewed up fishing line

[Tarpon4me]

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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