18lb Sufix 832 Lead Core – Review

I spent my last three outings on Lake Wisconsin trolling with 18lb Sufix 832 Advanced Lead Core. My clients and I trolled with a variety of different crank baits in search of walleyes & saugers. We fished primarily in 10-16′ of water and put a ton of fish in the boat. (3 full days of trolling resulted in over 150 fish caught using this line)

The sink rate was excellent and one of two things I loved the most about this line. On average, we could easily make our lures bump bottom in 15′ of water with between 75-90′ of line out behind the boat. The short distance behind the boat enabled our baits to stay close to the contour when trolling along sharp breaking drop-offs.

My 2nd favorite thing about this line was its sensitivity. Again, short distances behind the boat and zero stretch line amounted to unequaled sensitivity. Absolutely loved it when a good walleye or sauger would crush the bait. At the initial hit, it felt like you had a big one every time.

Now for the bad part: I rigged three rods with 18lb Advanced and by the end of the 3rd day, all three lines were completely shot. Shards of lead were poking through the sheath everywhere. The worst section was by far the first full color at the end of our line (30′) but the line was also badly damaged well into the 2nd full color and sporadic damage to the next half color of line. Basically, any line that was repeatedly going in & out of the reel, was either somewhat or badly damaged by the end of the 3rd day.

For those of you who might be thinking I made this post just to bash someones product, think again. This is an honest assessment from someone who put this promising product through a rigorous three day test. I found enough promising attributes that despite the $90 I’m out for three 100yd spools of Sufix 832 Advanced lead core, I intend to give this product another chance. This time, I intend to purchase 27lb or 30lb test Advanced lead core as it may very well be that the heavier line will stand up to this kind of fishing.

Sometime in the near future, I hope to be able to do another review on the heavier lb test Sufix 832 Advanced lead core. You can bet I’m hoping it’s more durable as I would absolutely love to add this product to my fishing options on any given day.

Joel “Boog” Ballweg

I have found that you need to have a swivel between the lead and the leader. Because it is made with Dyneema instead of Dacron, if the line twists for any reason, the dyneema does not stretch and causes it to break the lead core.

Good luck.

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I have found that you need to have a swivel between the lead and the leader. Because it is made with Dyneema instead of Dacron, if the line twists for any reason, the dyneema does not stretch and causes it to break the lead core.

Good luck.

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I believe that would indeed help but I do not believe a swivel is going to do much to save your line two colors back in your reel.

disappointing. a buddy who I was fishing with this weekend mentioned that he was going to give the 832 lead a whirl. I was thinking about switching my rods to it also. definitely giving me pause now.

Well, that’s not a good characteristic for sure. I got three years out of my last batch of leadcore and just spooled 832 on my 4 walleye leadcore setups. Will need to keep an eye on that as I start to use it.

The one thing I did notice when spooling up was that for me, and maybe it is just me, but I couldn’t tie a willis knot with it to save my life. I just couldn’t get the Fluoro or mono to slide inside the sheath. Eventually gave up and tied albright knots instead.

Not cool at all! I just spooled up 4 reels with 832 lead. James you used this line quite a bit last summer did you see the same problems?

Joel, I tend to agree with ya, the 832 is a great lead core line other than the fact it is not very durable and shot after a weeks worth of fishing or less.

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Not cool at all! I just spooled up 4 reels with 832 lead. James you used this line quite a bit last summer did you see the same problems?

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I had one spool that had a loose weave that allowed the lead to poke out of the sheath. All other spools have been great with no issues and I would expect they’ll last quite a long time. I used my setups starting mid-summer last year, save the one bad spool which I returned for free replacement, with no signs of issues.

Not sure what to say. I wouldn’t put up with ANY breakdown of the line after limited use and I did see it on one spool but not the others I’ve purchased. Bad batch?

I’d recommend giving Rapala a call and inquire. I do know they’ll take care of you without question as they did with my one bad spool.

I will say this, I wouldn’t trade my 832 lead core for anything. Everything about it is better…. assuming you didn’t get a stinker spool of it.

I had a spare minute so I just called Rapala. I spoke to Customer Service guy Chris Britton (small world, he used to work at Thorne Bros). Anyway… Chris says this is only the second time he’s heard of any issues with the Sufix 832 Leadcore but since a couple of us have seen this issue he’s taking it to Rapala’s lead product developer and see what he has for input or ideas on what might be happening or how to address it.

FWIW – Chris said he’ll email me back with any info he might come up with and I’ll share that here.

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I had a spare minute so I just called Rapala. I spoke to Customer Service guy Chris Britton (small world, he used to work at Thorne Bros). Anyway… Chris says this is only the second time he’s heard of any issues with the Sufix 832 Leadcore but since a couple of us have seen this issue he’s taking it to Rapala’s lead product developer and see what he has for input or ideas on what might be happening or how to address it.

FWIW – Chris said he’ll email me back with any info he might come up with and I’ll share that here.

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If it helps, I would be happy to send them back the line I used.
Pretty sure I still have at least one of the empty line spools from which this batch came on. I could send that to rapala as well if they’re interested. Come to think of it, I may have a full spool of this same line which has never been used and was bought at the same time.

It would certainly be greatly appreciated if they would replace this line that went bad. As I mentioned above, I also see some huge advantages to this line. Just a few bugs that may need to be worked out.

Keep up the good work Looking forward to your findings on the heavier stuff.

Does the heavier weight line have the same sink rate as the 18# of ~7ft at 2.0 mph?

From what I’ve read & heard it is suppose to have the same exact sink rate.

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From what I’ve read & heard it is suppose to have the same exact sink rate.

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That is correct. The only real advantage I see in the 12# line is that you can get more of it on a reel.

I heard right back from Rapala. Here’s what they recommend:

“To break this down as simple as possible, a barrel swivel is needed and makes a significant difference in 832 leadcore use. Anglers who contour troll, troll in rivers with current or any place where contact is made will cause line twist. The Dyneema will not return back to its original state once it has been twisted, it will remain twisted. With this line twist, the lead inside is brittle and not designed to twist. This is why we are seeing the lead pop through. This is one of those give and take aspects to fishing line. 832 dives deeper and performs very well, but a swivel is needed for the above fishing styles. Trout/Salmon anglers in the great lakes for example, have not seen this as they are not contacting bottom. Thanks for bringing this up James!”

For what its worth, I run the smallest Sampo swivels they make about 6′ up from my lure. Been doing this for years. Not because I knew about the need to do so with the 832 but because I’ve dealt with some HORRIBLE messes caused by a tangled lure that basically wound traditional lead core so tight it turned it into a twisted ball by the time I got the lure back to the boat.

So that begs the question, what about the “bad” spool of 832 that I had? It wouldn’t surprise me if I didn’t use a swivel on that setup as I was basically just testing the line more than anything. All the line on the rods setup with 832 advanced that I have right now look perfect. Is it due to the use of the swivel? Coincidence? I doubt it.

Anyway, it is something to try. And for those that have a bad spool of line, give Rapala a call. They’re great to work with.

That’s good info James. Guess I will be adding some swivels to my LC rods before running them out.

I put the Suffix 832 lead core on two of my LC reels this spring and I have only used it one time on Lake Pepin. After reading all the negative reports I just went out and checked one of my reels and found two places in the first 10′ that the lead was poking through the sheath. Guess I’ll be calling Rapala to see what they have to say.

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I put the Suffix 832 lead core on two of my LC reels this spring and I have only used it one time on Lake Pepin. After reading all the negative reports I just went out and checked one of my reels and found two places in the first 10′ that the lead was poking through the sheath. Guess I’ll be calling Rapala to see what they have to say.

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I’m curious. Are you using a swivel as suggested above?
I just restrung all three of my lead core rods and will be using a swivel from now on. Not sure if this will cure all my issues but I gotta believe it will certainly help.

By the way, I rate rapala’s customer service AAA+ for how fast they replaced my lead core.
Normark – you customer service is greatly appreciated!

I too spooled 832 lead core and used it a couple of times last fall. I just looked at it and the lead is through the sheath as well, I wish they would have made the swivel thing known on the package. I will definitely suggest it to them.

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I put the Suffix 832 lead core on two of my LC reels this spring and I have only used it one time on Lake Pepin. After reading all the negative reports I just went out and checked one of my reels and found two places in the first 10′ that the lead was poking through the sheath. Guess I’ll be calling Rapala to see what they have to say.

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I’m curious. Are you using a swivel as suggested above?
I just restrung all three of my lead core rods and will be using a swivel from now on. Not sure if this will cure all my issues but I gotta believe it will certainly help.

By the way, I rate rapala’s customer service AAA+ for how fast they replaced my lead core.
Normark – you customer service is greatly appreciated!

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No I was not using a swivel, I’ve been running LC for over ten years and never saw the need until now to use one. I have added a swivel to all my LC core lines and will see how it works tomorrow.

X2 on their customer service, I sent an email to Rapala yesterday and got a response answering all my questions this morning.

You didn’t say how long your leader was, but if you had more
than 2 colors of ‘core IN the water, and the depth was 10-16’,
you were probably dragging some of your first color and all
of your leader across the bottom. This might be whats causing
the abrasion and line twist.

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You didn’t say how long your leader was, but if you had more
than 2 colors of ‘core IN the water, and the depth was 10-16’,
you were probably dragging some of your first color and all
of your leader across the bottom. This might be whats causing
the abrasion and line twist.

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Seriously! You really believe we we’re dragging our lead core on the bottom?
And yet we caught over 150 walleyes in 3 days.

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You didn’t say how long your leader was, but if you had more
than 2 colors of ‘core IN the water, and the depth was 10-16’,
you were probably dragging some of your first color and all
of your leader across the bottom. This might be whats causing
the abrasion and line twist.

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Seriously! You really believe we we’re dragging our lead core on the bottom?
And yet we caught over 150 walleyes in 3 days.

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In Randy’s defense, I thought the same thing when I read the original post where you said 75-90′ of line. Shouldn’t the 832 LC take about 60′ of line to get to 15 feet not even factoring in the crankbait depth? I realize current, speed, and leader length make a difference.

I have a spool ready to go on some reels, so I am waiting to see what Rapala says about it. I run swivels anyway, so hopefully that takes care of everything.

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You didn’t say how long your leader was, but if you had more
than 2 colors of ‘core IN the water, and the depth was 10-16’,
you were probably dragging some of your first color and all
of your leader across the bottom. This might be whats causing
the abrasion and line twist.

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Seriously! You really believe we we’re dragging our lead core on the bottom?
And yet we caught over 150 walleyes in 3 days.

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In Randy’s defense, I thought the same thing when I read the original post where you said 75-90′ of line. Shouldn’t the 832 LC take about 60′ of line to get to 15 feet not even factoring in the crankbait depth? I realize current, speed, and leader length make a difference.

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I’m surprised anyone would think it possible to catch that many walleyes by dragging their lines on the bottom of the lake while pulling crank baits behind lead core. If that were actually true, we would have been plowing furrows all over bottom of the lake with the bills of our crank baits.

Speed is indeed the key word here and since this was initially more of a product review than a fishing report, I did not mention our speed, which was on average, 3 mph.
Due to wind, waves & current, it did at times vary to as slow as 2.7 and as high as 3.5mph.

As per the original review, we used the same technique this weekend with the new spools of 18# Sufix Advanced 832. This time we included a small swivel between the lead core & our leader line.

So far, it seems to be performing quite well. I did not see any problems over the last two days of trolling.

Hang on now Joel,
Why would you think that it was impossible? Just asking here now.