How to back a reel for braid?

I feel like a nerd posting this but I never knew how to back a reel for powerpro. It has become a problem with me, as i have been having some slippage w/ 50 lb PP on a curado. I never had slipping on my flueger but i guess the grouves are just a little different on the curado. So everyone talks about needing to put backing on..And here goes….How do you do it? Do you put on a few yards of mono and tie the braid around the mono or do you tie the braid directly to the mono as if it were a leader? And if so, what knot do you use. I’m bored and i’m about to go back my curado if i can figure out how to do it. I missed a fish or two on sunday because of it and the help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Cade

Piece of cake. Spool some regular mono on first and then tie the PP to the mono and finish spooling the reel

thats what i thought but how do you tie it to the mono? for me it always falls apart and i worry if i got spooled that i would be crying in the end is there a good knot to use for this?

what kind of knot would you tie, a blood knot or what

Hi Cade,

I tied some mono to the reel using an arbor knot, spun on 3 or 4 layers, and trhen used a blood knot to tie the mono to the Power Pro. It seemed to work well. Here’s a good link for knot tying instructions:

Animated Knots

Rootski

thanks guys

Or, just use electrical tape. A wrap or two, spin the tape so the sticky is up and a couple more wraps. I use this method for my casting reels and mono backing for the larger trolling reels.

BIRDDOG

Tie a uniknot to connect the backing to the spool & use back to back uniknots for the mono to PP connection.
The uniknot is very useful to learn. I use it to snell hooks to mono to make crawler harnesses.

thanks rootski, that website rocked! And there is no more slippage on my CU-200

Cade, buy some cheap mono and spool about half of your reel with it, then do a uni knot-uni knot to tie the braid on. That way you only need 50-75 yards of braid and it will be much easier on the pocketbook for you. I use uni-uni but i know some guys just tie square knots- if you are casting to the backing time for some new line. I prefer to have a little strength in the knot- just in case

I used to use a mono backer, but I read somewhere to try a wrap or two of electrical tape….it’s simple and it works! I don’t bother with the mono backer anymore.

I agree with the electrical tape suggestion. I use it on my muskie reels and bye bye slippage.

yup every reel that has power pro gets duct tape for me….
not fire line ( right birddog )

skip the mono just more of a hasle than its worth….

another thing…. every year re-wind your power pro

for example the end you casting this year should be the end on your reel next year. you should get a soild 3 year out of one spool….

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another thing…. every year re-wind your power pro

for example the end you casting this year should be the end on your reel next year. you should get a soild 3 year out of one spool….

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That’s a great point! All of a sudden that $12.99 spool of line works out to be only $4.33 per year….freeing up more money to spend on new fishing stuff.

Cade, the double Surgeons knot is the easiest, fastest and the best. Just throw an extra twist around with the Power Pro…cause its slippery.
Fly fishermen have been using this knot for years on leaders/tippets. I love it for leaders on Power pro!

Double UNI works great……

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you should get a soild 3 year out of one spool

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Wow! I put fresh braid on my reels at least 3-4 times a year Maybe I should start selling my used Power Pro at a discounted price…

d-nort do you do this because you feel you need to cause you wear it out or is it a mental thing that give you utmost confidence? just wondering ike

I don’t know about Dave but I think the exposed line drys out and is more prone to breakage, I’ll even go as far as saying I know that. I think if a guy only gets out once in awhile you’d be ok not changing all year. And I also find that you’ll re-tie enough and lose enough line over time you end up not having the correct amount of line on the spool and change the retreive speed which is not always a good thing.

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d-nort do you do this because you feel you need to cause you wear it out or is it a mental thing that give you utmost confidence?

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Both.

First off, I only spool about 15 extra yards (<50ft) of braid over my filler (that is 15 extra yds more than the longest cast I can make). This ensures I change the line after a dozen re-ties or one big break-off. The dozen break-offs is self-explainitory but I’ll elaborate on the break-off.

A break-off is when most guys get hung and need to break their line. Well, when you’re talking braid that is not that simple. If you’re anything like me I used to do the boat-cleat-trolling-motor trick. That is when you wrap your braided line around your boat cleat then step on the trolling motor in the opposite direction to break your line (you certainly can’t do it by hand). Well, your line will break at the weakest spot (many times your knot), but no matter where it breaks you can bet the rest of the line has been stressed beyond its capacities. If there was a weak spot that almost broke during the cleat trick but was beat out by the knot breaking, that weak spot still exsists and I certainly don’t want that there during a tournament.

Here is the next reason I like to only put what is nessessarry on the reel. Let’s say I am spooled-up to the max (only 15 yds more than my longest cast) and I hang something. I have two options: I can do the boat cleat trick and weaken my line, or I can cut my line at the surface of the water. If I cut my line and lose more than 10 yards I will not get the max distance on each cast now. I know this sounds anal but if this happens 2 or 3 times the next thing you know is your spool is half empty and you are losing 30 feet per cast. Once again, I know this sounds petty but if I always have to respool after a big break off I am garaunteed to always out-cast those guys with half spools.

Lastly, many of us can wear out a new spool of braid in a matter of 5 days if we’re using that reel a lot over a 5 consecutive pre-fishing day (12+ hours each) streak…

Dave-You just saved me some money
When I spooled a reel with a mono backing, I always used a little bit of mono. If I understand correctly what you do is use more mono and less braid, correct? If so, that should make a new spool last a lot longer It does make sense now that I think of it

Can someone explain why you would want to tie the mono backing to the braid? Can’t see any advantage to doing that way what so ever. What am I missing here?

To prevent slippage I’ll go with the electrical tape trick. Always works. If I’m backing with mono to use up some reel space, I’ll run the mono on and then cap it with electrical tape. Why in the world would you want to play out the braid and have it turn to mono at the end of the reel? Always has confused me….

-J.

Why not? In the event that I’d hook a fish that could take me into the backing, I’d rather have it tied to the mono that just lose the fish because I rean out of line.

all you need is a layer of mono and a blood knot and you’ll be good