Ever been to a tackle store and watched fishermen look at fishing rods? They shake, bend and twist them. All anglers have certain things they do to test products.
Legendary angler Bill Dance is no exception. The first thing he does with every spool of line he gets is put it through the "hickory tree test."
He takes several feet of line, drapes it over a hickory limb in his back yard and tries to cut the limb in half with a sawing motion. As you know, hickory is a very hard wood, and his recent tests with DuraTuf proved this line is super tough, and has great abrasion-resistant characteristics and unmatched self-lubricating properties.
“I have done this test for over 30 years and Stren has never let me down, but this new DuraTuf is really special," he said. “In tough conditions, where rock and brush are present, I have not found a better line. I fish spinning gear 50% of the time and baitcasting gear the other 50%. I use 10- to 12-pound test on spinning gear and 14 most of the time on baitcasters.
The three characteristics he looks for in a line are knot strength ("the weakest place in any line is the knot:), strength retention and castability.
"Line-retention strength, to me, is the ability for the line to remain strong even after its been stretched," he said. "Whether you hang a bait up and pull like a mule to get your bait loose or just bear down on it when you tie the knot, some lines will lose strength because of this stretching. Not DuraTuf.
"This is the best line I have used for flipping and pitching – bar none.”
Our Tests
Even though we believe Dance, we felt we should put it through a few tests of our own. We tested both 17- and 20-pound clear and low-visibility green, and we found several things we felt were worth mentioning.
This line is super-tough and looking at it off the reel, it seemed a bit stiff. But after using it, we found it has a great disposition and very little spool memory. Even though this line is a bit heavy for spinning gear, we spooled it on both baitcasters and spinning reels and noticed no adverse effects.
It casts well on spinning gear with no ill effects – no over-runs or wicked backlashes. On the baitcaster it flowed evenly off the spool and gave us a sense of security with its toughness, even in dense brush and rocks.
Even after leaving the line on the reel for a week, there were no noticeable memory issues. We also liked its staying power. We stressed this line and noticed it had inherent lubrication qualities and no weakness after it was stretched.
The line-strength retention was superb and again, because of the lubrication qualities, we noticed no issues with abrasion. This line also had minimal stretch characteristics. It's designed for heavy cover, and our tests found it worked well. Even fishing a tube in heavy brush, we were able to detect bites and had no worries about getting a hooked bass in the boat.
The diameter of the line is consistent with each of the line sizes tested and compared well with others we have used.
Rods, reels and now line each have specialties, and the new Stren DuraTuf lived up to its name. This line is great for fishing around heavy cover, and we recommend it for that application.
Notable
> DuraTuf can be purchased in various yardage lengths, but the 330-yard spool was good for 3 to 4 reels when backing was used.
> DuraTuf ranges in price from about $7 to $11 per spool (depending on test strength) and can be ordered from the BassFan store. To order, click here.
> For more information on Stren lines, visit Stren.com
