I fished monofilament for the first twenty years I held a rod. I caught plenty of fish on it, and I am not here to tell you mono is trash. But two seasons ago I spooled every reel I own with Power Pro braided line, and I am not going back. The reasons are specific, and most of them come down to what mono does when it stretches. The rest come down to what braid does that mono simply cannot.
If you are still on mono because that is what your grandpa used, or because one bad experience with cheap braid turned you off, this list is for you. I will also tell you where mono still wins, because it does, and pretending otherwise is how you end up with the wrong line on the reel. I am not a sponsored guy. I buy this line like you do, and I am telling you what it did on my water.
The Braided Line I Spooled Every Reel With
Two seasons in, Power Pro is on every spinning reel I own. It handles the river, the lake, and the timber. Check today's price on Amazon and see why I stopped buying mono.
Amazon Check Today's Price on Amazon →You Feel the Bite Two Beats Sooner
Mono stretches. That is physics, not an opinion, and a stretchy line eats the first part of every bite you get. When a smallmouth picks up a tube on the river and turns, the mono has to stretch out before the hookset reaches the hook. PowerPro has almost no give. The take, the hookset, it all happens at once. A bluegill can load a mono rod before you feel it, but with braid the same bite hits your hand like a bell.
Same Strength, About Half the Diameter
Thirty-pound Power Pro is roughly the thickness of eight-pound mono. That means the line you need to haul a catfish out of a snag will still cast like a light line. It goes on the reel smaller, so you get more line per spool, and it slices through river current instead of bowing like a sail. I run thirty-pound on my catfish rods and ten-pound on my crappie reels, and both fish like lighter line than they are.
It Sinks, So Your Bait Gets Down Faster
Mono floats. That is great for a topwater and a problem the second you want a jig or a Carolina rig on the bottom. Braid sinks, and it sinks fast. A jig gets to the strike zone without you counting a long fall, and you can feel the bottom the whole way. That is worth more than a fast sink: it keeps your bait in the strike zone instead of swinging up over the weeds. On the lake in early spring, that is the difference between fishing deep and fishing pretend.
No Memory, No Coils, No Mess
Mono remembers every wrap it took on the spool. It comes off the reel in coils, and coils cost you distance and cause tangles. PowerPro lays flat the way you put it on. My first cast with it, the line left the spool clean and I understood what I had been fighting all those years. I have untangled one too many mono bird's nests at first light to miss it.
It Cuts Wind and Current for Longer Casts
A thin, dense line throws into a headwind that would balloon a mono line right back at you. On the river in March, when the wind is up and the smallmouth are tight to the bank, I can reach the far edge of the current seam with Power Pro. Mono, in that same wind, never gets there. Distance is not vanity when the fish are on the far side of the seam.
It Takes the Abuse in Timber and Rock
The night a big channel cat ran me into the snags, mono would have popped. I was juglining in the timber and the fish buried me in a brush pile. The Power Pro frayed, I could feel the rough spots through the line, and it held long enough to turn the fish. You can feel the damage when you reel in, and you cut it off and retie instead of losing the fish. That is the abrasion test, and it is the reason I do not fish mono in heavy cover anymore.
High-Vis Line Lets You Watch the Take
Not every bite announces itself through the rod. Crappie fishing a jig under a float, or tight-lining a soft plastic, the take shows up as a twitch in the line. A bright braid you can actually see turns that twitch into a hookset. I watch my line the way I watch a deer trail, and PowerPro makes it visible. A take that would have been invisible on a dark mono line shows up like a telegraph.
One Spool Lasts Two Seasons, Not One
Sunlight breaks mono down. Leave a mono-spooled reel in the truck for a summer and the line gets brittle, then it snaps on a cast. Braid does not go rotten the same way. The Power Pro that went on my reels in the spring of 2024 is still fishing today. It has faded, sure, and I trim the first few feet off, but it has not turned to dust. Mono has a shelf life even in the box, and braid does not.
The Hookset Lands Harder From Forty Feet
Add up no stretch and thin diameter and you get something mono cannot do: drive a hook from a long way off. Catfishing with a long rod and a slack line, I can set the hook with the rod and feel it land all the way up the line. With mono, that same hookset would have spent half its energy stretching the line before it reached the fish. I set the hook the same way every time, and the difference in what I feel at the end of the line is plain.
It Plays Perfectly With a Leader
You do not have to give up what mono is good at. Tie a mono or fluorocarbon leader onto the braid and you get the invisibility and the stretch where you want them, with the braid's strength and feel everywhere else. A short leader hides the braid in clear water and gives you a little forgiveness on a hard hookset. One rod, braid to a leader, and you have the best of both worlds without the compromise.
What I'd Skip
Here is the honest part. If you fish clear, still water with light tackle for finicky fish, braid can cost you bites without a leader. It is not invisible, it is louder on the water surface, and it has no stretch to forgive a hard hookset on light hooks. Mono is also easier to tie and cheaper to replace, and for a kid learning to cast, a stretchy line is more forgiving. If all you do is throw a worm on a bobber for bluegill, braid is a solution looking for a problem. I still own mono. I just do not spool it up unless the day calls for it.
The Power Pro frayed and held long enough to turn the fish. That is the abrasion test, and it is the reason I do not fish mono in heavy cover anymore.
Spool Up and See for Yourself
Two seasons in, every reel I own is running Power Pro. Check today's price on Amazon and put braid on one reel. Give it a season before you decide.
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