Bluegill line choices

My former favorite ice fishing line,(gold stren), is no longer being made. I need to re-spool some reels and would like to know what others think is a good choice to fish on spinning reels. I fish a lot in 30 feet of water and like a brightly colored 2lb test. From that I can tie a fluorocarbon leader if I wish. Suffix looks like it might serve me well, but was wondering of any other choices. If Suffix, should I get the ice magic? Does it only come in orange or clear? Thanks for your help.

check out stren crappie mono. comes in clear or gold

Stren gold was my favorite too, it was as smooth as silk even in the coldest weather, I switched to Suffix Ice Magic. I still like a colored line, gold, yellow or green rather than clear and doesn’t seem to bother the fish any at all but helps detect a bite and even see if I actually got the line in the hole – clear line on ice is no good for me.

pline flouro 3lb is my go to line. suffix makes and orange flouro that i really like. i stick with 3lb as we always seem to end up tussling with a bass in with the gills.

X2 on the new Stren crappie mono in gold. Almost identical to the old Stren gold.

I’m glad to hear that the crappie gold is similar to the former gold Stren. Now, I just need to find a place that carries it. Tried contacting the people from Stren, the answer I got did not help much.

I was having breaking issues pulling my line out with 2lb sufix ice magic so I switched to 3lb P-Line floroice and it’s been good so far.

I usually order it directly from their website. I was just at fleet farm and noticed they had it.

I really like Suffix Ice Magic in clear. When I go with a colored line, the Ice Magic orange seems too visible underwater, so I go with Berkley Trilene Micro Ice in solar green, which is slightly less visible underwater.

I just ordered some Trilene 3lb solar green to go with a tickle stick I ordered.

Pline Fluorocarbon! I love it and use the 2lb for Panfish and 6lb for Walleye. Not a fan on Fluoro in the summer, but it works great in the winter.

The 2lb size Stren crappie mono I had to order online from Cabela’s. it was never on the shelf at the Woodbury store.

When I rig, I typically use colored line with a 2# fluoro leader. Fluorocarbon line just seems a little stiff to use on my reel, though I am finding I like the inline reels a lot more than I would. Maybe it would be fine on one of those.
This week, in southern Michigan, there is a fishing show. An area of the show is dedicated to ice fishing. I’m hoping to talk with some of the pros about line choices for both inline and spinning reels. I’ll have to ask on the P-Line. It’s the one line I have never tried.

In my experience even on the clearest lakes and ponds I have never found Stren gold to deter a gill bite. I’ve used it side-by-side with clear fluoro and the gold line out fished the clear line. To me it seemed the visibility for the angler was more an advantage than the stiffer fluoro line. My guess is what a human can see and what a fish can see is different enough and a big plus for me being able to see the line – even on my dead sticks. Possibly another difference is that the fish could feel the fluoro line but not the silky smooth Stren gold. Adding a leader, even with a swivel seems to just add more breaking points and more pain when it comes to tying on different jigs with cold hands.