What top shot line

[Nev Allen]

Being a newbe to deep water fishing I am a bit confused about what line to use as a top shot. Some say use braid to the reel and mono as top shot, and others say the reverse.

To my shallow water fishing brain, you need to feel the bite so braid to the fishing tackle makes sense but in deeper water, the bites will be stronger so maybe braid to the reel and mono to the catching bits is correct.

What are your thoughts?

[EdBerg]

My personal view is braid on the reel and a top shot of mono, braid has very little stretch so whilst it does give you a good degree of feel and line capacity, it has little give or stretch, so if the drag is tightened up and if the fish bolts then there is potential for the line to snap as the drag may not slip in time before that happens. Using a top shop of mono, which can possibly be up to 20% of its length, the mono should act like a rubber band absorbing the sudden burst of tension giving the drag time to slip and do it's work.

Down side is that you loose a bit of the sensitivity and line capacity, upsides of doing this is also that most mono would have better line wear/cut resistance and with the majority of the reel's capacity in braid giving you larger line capacity than just straight mono.

This is the way I do it but others may have different views.