Bill Maly wrote:

I am a freelance writer creating an article on fishing line. I am searching
for expertise on the color, strength and types of line. If you have some
input please contact me via e-mail.

I'm not going to email this, but will post it on your thread for the
benefit of current and future newsgroup readers.

Be careful your article contains actual facts instead of advertising
hype. You don't want to be a useful idiot for the line manufacturers.
If you do a web search on line you might find bogus advertising claims.

One radio fishing show host was asked how often to change all the line
in a reel. The host said to change your line every fishing trip!
Normally the host isn't bad in debunking myths, for example when
someone asked if it's true you can catch more fish with red hooks, he
laughed and said red hooks just catch fishermen, not more fish.
Perhaps one of his sponsors sells line. In reality, you don't need to
change line nearly that often. Just cut the end if you notice
significant nicks.

For fish health, it's most sporting to use the HEAVIEST line you can
get away with. The heavier the line, the sooner you land the fish and
the less the fish suffers from exhaustion. One of the worst things in
fishing is IGFA records which encourage people to use light line to
kill fish in hopes of appearing in a sissy record book nobody cares
about. Of course if line is _too_ heavy, you might not feel the bites
and lure action will suffer.

Line doesn't scare fish as much as the advertisers would have you
believe. I've used 10 pound test regular diameter clear line and
caught fish in extremely clear water. I don't go lower than 6 pound
test regular diameter clear line even in gin-clear water.

I don't mind coils and memory in line. In fact, the coils can help.
Fished this past Sunday when the air was unseasonably warm. Fish in
the dead of winter are largely inactive. The bites were so tiny, I
couldn't feel them, but I saw extremely subtle tightening of a coil to
indicate a bite. Caught 14 sunfish, detecting most of them by the
subtle tightening.