Mack Toon and I were discussing the new Berkley Forward braid during a round table.
A lot of what I do is testing gear. Long story short, while the “Forward” model of the Berkley braid absolutely casts further than Daiwa J-Braid or PowerPro x8 with less effort… it has just too many weird negatives to continue to use after a month of thorough testing 5+ days a week. I’m restringing my spinners right now.
Save your money. I can’t recommend it in good conscience.
Commented on Mack Toon and I were discussing the n...
27 Apr 05:34
Ultimately I spent too much time in line management vs other braids. Take away the cost out of the negatives it’s almost mechanical concerns. What makes it good is also what makes it bad. It’s not a tensile strength thing, it’s more of a coiling and coating issue.
In no particular order, it’s a high maintenance braid, the coating wears down very quickly after use so lots of cutting off a few yards and re-tying leaders to get rid of the grindy sandpaper feel. Casting gets really rough after a while. That kind of defeats the purpose.
It has a ton of memory which doesn’t go away even after stretching. This makes it jump off the spool. I’ve noticed loops under the spool multiple times. Mikeyballz had the same things happen to him on a reel he was testing. My stradics did the same thing.
A simple Alberto connection is a royal p.i.t.a. Since it is so slippery and doesn’t seem to dig into flouro like others and you have to use at least 30% more wraps for a secure connection. I use about 15 foot leader with 12-15lb flouro.
Just a lot of really weird things to deal with instead of just spooling it on and fishing with it.