I have a doubt...
I fish for northern strain largemouth bass and I'm looking for bass over 5 pounds.
I fish mostly on small ponds. Most of the ponds have ultra clear water, sometimes 20ft visibility! Bass in this clear water spook easily. About cover: I fish a pond that's full of weeds and specially soft moss. Other ponds have trees and rocks, and there's one pond with almost no cover.
I only fish from the bank and I have one casting rod & reel and one spinning rod & reel.

I think I should use light line because of the clear water, but sometimes I fish heavy cover, and I'm looking for bass over 5lbs.
Maybe I should use heavy line on my casting reel and light line on my spinning reel?

Is Trilene XT green a good line? Here at Portugal I saw a line in a shop that seems to be good: Trilene SensiThin Ultra. It's stronger than Trilene SensiThin and Trilene Sensation!

I want a line that works with all kinds of baits (worms, soft jerkbaits, topwaters, spinnerbaits, jigs...).

Well, with all this information could you please tell what kind of line (brand, pound test, color...) should I use on each of my reels (baitcasting and spinning)?



Thanks!

Good fishing!

Marco Caetano

I also have fished many small ponds (overflow from rivers) like your talking about mostly for smallmouth thought, they were very spooky.

I would suggest you go w/ mabey 12-14lb florocarbon on your casting rod and 8-10lb on you spinning you really dont want to get much bigger than 14lb for little ponds especially if your biggest bass is only going to be around 5lbs. In Ultra Clear water I suggest you use only clear or florocarbon line. Use green in off colored water. I would reccomend if berkley is the only reddily avalible line not to use XT because it is very stiff I would use XL it has a thinner diameter and handles much better than stiff lines especially for spinning rods.

Taylor

You should also try using bigger baits and fishing at night. You dont have to throw giant baits but I would recomend upsizing and going nocternal. Line size dosent matter much at night.

www.mattlures.com

The recommendations above are good. For the spinning rod I'd say 8 to 12# Clear Monofilament (I like Trilene XL) or Flouro (Still undecided as to brand). For the Baitcaster, I'd suggest 12 to 17# Clear or moss Green Mono (Trilene Big Game) or Flouro.
Furthermore if you have the option, you might get an extra spool for the baitcaster and change it out based on the conditions at that particular body of water. In that case it'd be 8-10# on the spinning rod, 12# on 1 baitcasting spool and 15-17# on the other. Lastly,
as was said above, the night time can be the right time.
Tight lines,
Wade

100% flurocarbon line is almost invisable(same light-index as water) under water. It's also thinner in diameter than mono but stronger.

I've been using Seaguar's Carbon Pro f/c line for about 5 years now and it's helped me land quite a few 3-6 lb Bass from ponds bot no double-digit hookups yet;( . Seaguar perfected f/c line for casting and is the largest manufacturer in the world.

Dan

"Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less"

Deo Vindice

Maybe its just me but those line weights seem really high. In really clear, bare lakes my spinning rod would never be over 8, and more often 6. If you're worried about breakage then switch to the baitcaster with 10 to 12. I use maxima ultragreen for my spinning and P-line flouro for my baitcaster. Some people might think that those weights are way too light but that is what I would do.

Matt

Thank you for your advice!

Now I know what pound test I'll use. I'm thinking about using 6lb test on one spool and 8lb test on the other spool on my spinning reel and 12lb test on my baitcasting reel. Then if I don't have many hits while using 12lb test maybe I'll downsize to a 10lb test line to see if I have more hits.

Good fishing to all!

Marco Caetano