Suicidal bird's nest

Somehow I got a world class backlash yesterday casting my line counter salmon setup. I've worked on it over an hour and just want to remove all the 30# braid and start over. What's your favorite way to remove deeply tangled braid?

Grrrrrrrrrr!!!!!


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Ok, after 2 1/2 hours I got all the line off the reel. The last 400' came off clean. I re-spooled that 400' back on as it was in perfect condition.

Should I:

1) remove it and start over?
2) tie on another 300-500' of the same 30# braid?
3) take it to a tackle shop and have them load it?

How much braid do you put on a salmon/steelhead reel?




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Any reel I have with braid is mostly mono with about 100yds of braid on top. Much cheaper and you can reverse the braid after a while.

Throw some mono backing on there, 150 yds of braid is plenty.

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I just try to find deals on braid and load straight through. My JX has 500 yrds of 50 on it 

I just try to find deals on braid and load straight through. My JX has 500 yrds of 50 on it 

eBay is great for stuff like that.  I got a 1500 yard spool of 65# power pro for $80.  900 of it went on my Fathom 60LW

Make sure that braid is spooled on TIGHT!!   If just cranked on, will dig in and snarl when the drag is tight.

I do not know if this works with braid but it seems kind of interesting. FYI, I have not tried it.

Wow, that's a neat trick.I almost want a backlash, just to try it...I'm sure I'll get my chance soon. Thanks for sharing.


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Cool trick, thanks for sharing.  I may get a chance to try it out tomorrow as im gonna hit the water with my brother for his first experience with a baitcaster.  Years of drift fishing have forced me to become pretty good at pulling backlashes out and pretty good at avoiding them completely.  I'll let my brother practice for a bit but if I get a chance to try the trick, i'll report as to my success.

I've tried it with braid and it didn't work.  Might depend on the severity of your "line fro" but the couple times I gave that method a try I had to break out the scissors to get back in the game..

Thanks Pelagic. I thought it might not work with braid but at least it looks like a reasonable thing to try for a mono backlash.

I've had some pretty gnarly snarlies with braid and have almost always managed to clear them.  Topologically speaking you can't create a knot with a bunch of loops, so pull out until it stops, backup, find the trapped loop, free the trap, repeat ... The times I used a knife was when I was willing to sacrifice line for time.

That's why you always bring back up gear. Take the time later to work through it. Braided line can usually be untangled and thankfully they won't get kinked or nicked like mono.

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Cool trick, thanks for sharing.  I may get a chance to try it out tomorrow as im gonna hit the water with my brother for his first experience with a baitcaster.  Years of drift fishing have forced me to become pretty good at pulling backlashes out and pretty good at avoiding them completely.  I'll let my brother practice for a bit but if I get a chance to try the trick, i'll report as to my success.

I had to say something like that.... Don't think my brother even got one backlash, but I sure did.  I tried the 'trick' but I didn't have much success, then again, I tried the standard method and it didn't work either.  So the fact that I was also using mono is pretty much irrelevant.  Maybe i'll try the trick next time I go because there is no way I can avoid them...