Japanese Silk

Japanese Silk

--Fishing Lines--

During 30's- 50's, silk was one of the most important industry in Japan, and Japan was the largest exporter of quality silk. Now the industry has moved to more cost-efficient regions like China and Brazil, and silk industry is gone. However, the technologies and quality still can be seen in the today's fishing lines. Adding to the heritages from silk industry, engineer's significant effort to satisfy highly demanding anglers helped the fishing line industry to have such great products today.

Left: silk manufacturing in 40's (Miyamoto Silk)

Above: Card reading first silk factory in Japan

Nylon was invented by Dupont as Nylon 66 mono-polymer in 30's, and it is still the main material for fishing line. It is inexpensive, strong, transparent, and relatively abrasion resistant. Premium Nylon lines today are added with abrasion resistant coatings, hardener for more sensitivity, softener for easier casting, and slippery coatings for further casting ranges, for respective target usages. As general, they have quite even surface, and really round section today. Fluorocarbon line was introduced by Kureha (Seaguar) in 1971. It has much harder body and less stretch rate at low load than Nylon., and it is more sensitive. It has long been used as leader because it was very stiff and wouldn't fit to spools. Recent re-invention of Fluorocarbon line is due to the innovation to produce a line with multiple material, like soft core and hard surface. Toray's Super Hard Pro introduced in 1992, has changed the standard line for finesse rigs. Now, most angler in Japan spool fluorocarbon lines to spinning reels. Fluorocarbon line sinks fast in water, and it also help light rigs to reach fishing range with smaller sinkers. Regarding polyethylene braid line, I have another topics and please read it at Tackle Topics.

Do you know that LB-test standards in Japan and US are different. Japane and US shared LB-test standard in the past, when original Stren (Dupont) was introduced as premium game fishing line, around 70's. Before the Stren, Japanese line was guaged by weight, not by strength. As Japanese anglers educate themselves with LB-test, most line manufacturers started to indicate LB-testing of lines. However, after they started improving their products, line standards in both countries started to divert in two ways. US line manufacturers kept the thickness and indicated LB-test remained, and advertised improved line as "stronger" line. Instead Japanese line manufacturers kept the real strength and indicated LB-test remained but manufactured lines thinner to advertise for "catching more and casting farther."

Adding to the difference in marketing strategies, IGFA (International Game Fishing Association) rule has large effect on Japanese lines. Under the IGFA rule, lines have to break before the LB-test. Japanese line manufacturers see IGFA line qualification as a quality standard, and they design line strength as close to its indicated LB-test as possible, but not exceed it. IGFA will disqualify the record, if the line used overtests. Right:Varivas IGFA line

Please take a look at following chart. Mostly, Japanese lines are 1-2 level thinner than US lines if we compare the same LB-test line. It doesn't mean Japanese lines are stronger. I believe the strengths of materials are mostly identical for basic lines. The US lines are just stronger than indicated LB-test. It is good for bass fishermen, but not good for record seeking anglers. Please make sure you use IGFA qualified line if you challenge for a record in a LB-test class.

Nylon line LB-test and thickness standards (data from Toray and Stren) Lines of most comparable thickness are listed side by side.

Japan		US
LB-test	Dia (mm)	Dia (mm)	LB-test	Dia (inch)
1	0.090
1.5	0.104
2	0.128
3	0.148	0.152	2	0.006
4	0.165
5	0.185
6	0.205	0.203	4	0.008
8	0.235
10	0.260	0.254	6	0.010
12	0.285	0.279	8	0.011
14	0.310	0.305	10	0.012
16	0.330	0.330	12	0.013
20	0.370	0.356	14	0.014
22	0.405	0.406	17	0.016
25	0.435	0.457	20	0.018
30	0.470
35	0.520	0.508	25	0.020
40	0.570	0.559	30	0.022
50	0.620	0.584	40	0.023
55	0.660
60	0.700
70	0.740	0.762	50	0.030
80	0.780
90	0.810
95	0.840
100	0.870

These difference cause some troubles when you directly import Japanese model reels because Shimano and Daiwa use Japanese line standard for line capacities. Therefore, if you fill US lines, it typically reduces line capacity at 10-20%, unless you fill thin lines like Stren Magnathin.

For your reference, 4lb line in Japan is called as #1 weight line, and 8lb is #2. Currently the thinnest line available is #0.03. It is in 0.029mm dia, or 0.0011 inch. It is about a third of hair. These lines are not made of Nylon, but of metal and used only for Ayu fishing. Ayu fishing is very interesting and I will soon post a topic about it.

Major Line Manufacturer in Japan and major products (each large manufacturer has about 100 products, and I list only a few of bass lines and jigging lines. You may find the best line with the combination of color, material, floating, sinking, suspending, hard-coating, soft coating as you want. Please let me know your requests.)

Toray	Nylon: Solaroam Base Rock(skeleton gold), Solaroam Bush Runner(opaque forest), Solaroam Long cast(Sky water), Solaroam Motion(mist blue) Fluorocarbon: Bawo Premium Plus(clear), Super Hard Natural(clear), Super Hard Spinning(yellow) PE Braid: Sea Bass PE(white),
Sunline	Nylon: Machingun Cast(brown), Fluorocarbon: FC Sniper(clear), BMS FC Sniper(clear+pink marking), Shooter Invisible(camo), PE Braid: Bass Super PE(dark green), PE Jigger8(colored in 25yards),
Sanyo	Nylon: GT-R(opaque blown), GT-R N-Spec(clear), Super GT-R(opaque brown) Fluorocarbon: GT-R F-Tune(opaque light blue) PE Braid: Super Cast PE(),
Morris	Nylon: Varivas Tournament, Varivas Extra Protect(ice blue), Varivas Cover Braker(clear), Varivas Super Soft(IGFA, flourcent blue), Game(IGFA, flourcent blue), PE Braid: Avani Jigging, Avani GT
Yotsuami	Nylon: Giga Nitron Spinning(clear), Giga Nitron Casting(green water), Nitron Soft(green brown), Nitron Top Water(floating, golden yellow) Fluorocarbon: Nitron DFC(clear)
Duel (Yo-Zuri)	Nylon: Fuzz casting(camo green), Fuzz spinning(light blue) Fluorocarbon: Fuzz Fluoro(light blue) Hybrid: X-tex, X-TeX cobra(green brown camo),

Abrasion resistant Nylon line: Yotsuami and Morris advertise Nitron and Extra Protect lines have 20 times abrasion resistance than normal Nylon lines. Sanyo's also do the same for GT-R as 10 times resistance. Now, a lot of different Nylon lines are available in Japan, as in the US, like Nylon lines for cover, long cast, less visibility, more sensitivity, top water and etc. Interesting lines not available in the US is are following.

1. Top Water line from Yotsuami. The line has 6 holes inside the line, and it floats.

2. Suspending lines. Weight is balanced to suspend in saltwater for off-rock fishing for very nervous fish.

3. Softer fluorocarbon line and harder Nylon line. These are sold as advanced lines(premium) in the categories. Hybrid line of X-Tex is the middle.

4. Evenly colored lines for offshore fishing. Most jigging lines are colored differently at every 10-25m to let us know the depth of the tackle. Evenly colored lines are only seen as lead core lines in the US.

5. IGFA PE braid line. It is offered from Morris.

6. Fast sinking braid line from Fujino, as Gravity line.

Lines today are far advanced from what we used to see. They are stronger, and mostly more specifically designed for targeted usage. To take the advantage of these advanced lines, we also need to update our knot skills that lines are more slippery than before.

Fishermen, please leave any comments, tuning results, or anything at Tackle Forum. Your inputs are your and our assets. If we share more info, we will be better anglers and wiser consumer.