Rio Powerflex

[east wind]

My confidence in Powerflex has taken a knock this season after about 4 years using the stuff.

Anyone able to reassure me its still a good product since the labelling change or suggest a similar breaking strain to diameter alternative.

Cheers,

Mac

[haresear]

It's all I use now,home or away Mac. For dry and nymph anyway. For lures I use trilene and it has been so long since i fished a loch I've forgotten what I last used :?

Alex

[scotfly]

Mine too, I've had a lot of breakages with it this year.
I've started using Varivas copolymer. http://www.funkyflytying.co.uk/shop/products/varivas-super-tippet-50-meters/535/

[Wildfisher]

I use it for dry - nymph - no probs so far.

For pulling flies only good old Maxima will do though, the co-polymer / double strength stuff does not  have enough elasticity for pulling flies IMO

[east wind]

I binned a lot of spools at the start of the season. Only a year old the stuff seemed to break too easily and i lost faith in that batch.

Reassuring that the NZ team have no complaints, but in a way I'm also glad that Scotfly has his doubts as well and I'm not totally paranoid (I'm sure the sneaky new labelling has something to do with it) Shame that Varivas does not come in 5lb but I'll try a spool of the 6lb at some point.

The 3.4 Powerflex in particular seems to break on me too easily, but now I'm not sure if its the leader, the knot or me. Cant do much about myself so in the interests of controlled research I will alter only one of the other variables at a time - The knot.

[deergravy]

I've a nagging suspicion that Powerflex and Frog Hair are the same product!
Both excellent, tho' I'm a stroft man myself.
All these fancy hi-tech spools have their nay-sayers, and with good reason- nothing absorbs a sudden shock like good old nylon.
For me, the jury's still out on this one - I haven't broken a tippet on a fish for a couple of years (barring catastrophe, of course!), I like the strength of Stroft but I cant say for sure that it's effective breaking strain is that much greater in a real-life fishing situation.

If I'm pulling wets I tend to use 3X/ 9.2lb stroft - not many fish will break that!

[Malcolm]

I've a nagging suspicion that Powerflex and Frog Hair are the same product!

I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of these are virtually identical - just marketed differently. Last year Buzz gave me some Stroft to try and as usual I tested it out. I always try and find out what their actual wet, knotted breaking strain is.

For a given stated diameter against my usual Hardy Ccopolymer it was so close as to make any differences unreliable. So diameter to strength is virtually the same. However there was a difference!

The difference was in the stated breaking strain to diameter ratio.

Stroft stated that for a given thickness the breaking strain was 3.4 lbs. It's actual breaking strain when wet and knotted was 2.4-2.6 lbs.

Hardy stated their breaking strain was 4lbs and the breaking strain when wet and knotted was 4.2-4.4lbs.

Once I had made the calculations the material strength there was almost no difference between the two. In other words If I had to buy Stroft to match the Hardy I would be buying approimately 5.7lbs Stroft to match 4lb bs Hardy copolymer.   

[Brian Mcg]

The Stroft that I use has  :? ABR 1.40KG, GTM 2.20KG, GTM 3.00KG. Plus the diameter


Brian

[haresear]

I agree with Col and Alan.

My answers to the Q&A

1) I do catch more and what is more, bigger fish these days.

2) Don't know, but don't see the point in using thicker diameters when I'm catching good sized fish on the gear I use and trust.

3) No. I didn't photograph the bandies I used to catch


Alex

[deergravy]

Interestingly (or let's be honest, maybe not ), Scott and myself have both, independently, done the same thing with spools of stroft, namely converting the diameter in mm to inches, then to the approximate 'X' size, and scrawled that onto the spool with a marker pen.
Also the breaking strain in kg to lbs.
One of us was obviously rounding up, the other rounding down, eg I put the '5X' at 6.6lbs, Scott had it at, I think, the 4.8 lbs stuff.

Wait, come back, I'm about to make a point...

When someone asks what leader you're using, everyone, but everyone describes it in terms of breaking strain. Which tells you bugger all, since the point of the question is to establish how fine a diameter they're using.

Hence the 'X' system - the Americans have got this right, diameter is not measured in pounds :x

Also, the 'rule of three' is not a bad rule of thumb - 3 times the X rating of your tippet is the hook size it will ideally turn over.
Certainly not something to be bound by, but broadly makes sense.

I'm sure this has been done to death before, but I still get bemused looks when I start talking about '6X Stroft'..