| Stren Line - Fishing Product Review | |
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by: Phil Williams
Mid America
Bass.com
What's Up" Stren?
For 18 years now I have used Stren fishing line exclusively for all my monofilament-fishing applications. I had always been a Trilene man until 1983 when I won the first Bass Tournament (U.S. Bass) I ever entered. I was in Kentucky, couldn't find any Trilene 20 lb. line at any of the area retailers so I reluctantly bought Stren fluorescent blue. Well, I ended up flippin' up a 20lb. sack the next day and won the tournament by 4 lbs. I was thinking," WOW that was easy, there's nothing to this tournament fishing".
I've since found out that nothing could be further from the truth, but that's a whole different story, or maybe 10,000 of them. But any way I kind of had this superstition thing about Stren (you know how fishin' is like that) ever since. It had to be the Stren that won that first Tournament. I mean, come on, these guys have been doing this since I was a kid, you can't beat them your first time out without some kind of Devine Intervention. It was the Stren Fishing Gods.
Now, you old timers that can remember 1983, can recall how much easier it was to catch a 20lb. sack way back then. You could use blaze orange goat rope and still catch a lot of fish. The competition wasn't near what it is today and the fish weren't smarter than you back then. Today it's a whole different deal. Just about anyone in the field has a legitimate chance of winning, and to make things even worse, some where along the line the fish got a whole lot smarter than you did.
I haven't used fluorescent line in I don't know how long. Not even in muddy water. For about the last 10 years or so I've used Stren green for just about all water conditions and have had very good "luck" (there's that superstition thing again) with it. That is until recently. Over the last year or so I've noticed that the green fades out, leaving it a kind of milky white, in less than a day of use. That kind of bothered me, but not nearly as much as it has the last year, since The Lake of the Ozarks has stayed so clear.
It was a REAL problem at Grand Lake during the Woods and Waters Classic as I was flippin' docks in real clear water. I would have to change out the line every day during my week of practice, and would have to spool up 3 rods with the same bait and line to get a whole days fishing out of the line. I have been on a very similar pattern at the "Lake" recently, so I will have to spool up 3 rods again for the tournaments I have coming up.
That is if I were going to continue to use Stren, which at this time, I'm not. You can see how expensive this respooling every day can get. We tournament fisherman have so many expenses as it is, you don't need a line you have to change out after 3 or 4 hours of fishing.
I have contacted Stren about the problem and they have instructed me to send them the "bad" spools and they will test it and send me replacement spools to replace them. The problem with that is I have 1000 yd. Spools of 10lb.-12lb-14lb-17lb, and 20lb. That's almost 3 miles of fishing line I will have to replace in order to fish tournaments over the next 3 weeks. Granted I would not have to buy 1000 yd. spools to get me by, but what should I do, buy smaller spools of defective Stren to hold me over until they replace my 3 miles of defective Stren. I doubt that's going to happen.
They have to be aware of the problem, though they deny it, as many of the ex-Stren users I have talked to about this problem have told me that's why they have switched to other brands. They tell me of the exact same deal and when they get the "new" line it has the same fading problem. I'm not sure of why the line fails to hold it's color, but it seems to me that Stren has changed something in its manufacturing process somewhere along the line, possibly when they went from Dupont to Remington, though I'm not sure when that was.
I'm going to send my 3 miles of defective line back to Stren this week and try going back to Trilene for my tournament this weekend. I'm not real sure of what line I will be using from here on out, I'm going to be trying several brands and will let you know my opinion of them as I go thru them. I can't say yet what I'm going to do when Stren sends back my 3 miles, I feel I should give the new line a try, but from what I here the problem is here to stay. I'll see what Stren has to say and check out the replacement line and let you know what I found out when Stren lets me know "What's Up".
