Swimbait fishing with Fluorocarbon mainline for Murray Cod!

Sitting at the departure gate at the airport with some time on my hands I thought I'd type this. It's about fluorocarbon as a mainline. Growing up lure fishing I only had access to monofilament, and when braid came along the transition to that direct feeling line was easy to make, I've used little else in probably 20 years or more. 

Swimbaiting for Murray cod, which I have done a lot of over the last 5 years, I have become accustomed to missed bites, a solid whack followed by nothing, the hit leads you to strike and wait for the weigh of a fish and the load up but probably half the time the bite was missed, and the rest of the time we came up solid but often with lip or even face hooked fish. We theorized about these bites and put it down to the fish 'killing' the bait, spitting it out then looking to inhale it again dead, the theory seemed reasonable. About a year ago after watching my 10654th U.S. bass video, where they fish a lot of fluorocarbon mainline, we decided to give it a go ourselves in an endeavor to hook more cod. Sourcing casting fluro is not easy in Australia unless you are talking light stuff (fine for bream fishing fans) but we sourced what has turned out to be excellent YGK Olltolos fluro in heaver breaking strains which we are wrapped with.

Andy, Cish and I spooled up and got casting. It took a little to get used to, it has a different feel, if you aren't careful it backlashes like a bitch, it's a little spongy but you still know exactly what is going on with your bait. It kinda makes you concentrate... and get in the zone.

At first light the fluorocarbon strikes!

12 months on I can comfortably state it has made a MASSIVE difference to my/our success fishing swimbaits for cod, the bite to hookup ratio has gone onto the range of more than 90% up from 50% or less with braid... Why you might ask?

Cod are an implosion feeder, they don't chase food down and bite it, they open their mouth and suck it in and at the same time expel water from their gills, they create a big vacuum and anything in front of that bucket mouth gets sucked in. Now here is the problem, on a braid line with no stretch, there is every possibility the line pulls tight and can't stretch any more so it stops where it stops. Often short of deep in the fishes mouth. The fish turns and the hookup is missed because it was basically a short strike, not a kill attempt by the fish, or if you are lucky, a hook may catch the outside of the fish's mouth or face. Fluorocarbon allows that lure to get sucked to the back of the gob, the fish turns and if struck properly usually results in a solid hookup. 

In the day and age of technology and accepting what people say is the right gear to use you can blindly accept it and overlook killer techniques and methods, I never thought I'd go back to a stretchy line but there you go, a step backwards has been a MASSIVE step forward in terms of success for this species. Prediction is that in a couple of years this will be mainstream in Australia for cod and barra casting.