My head hurts...

How long is a piece of string? Or should I as how thick is a length of line?

I have now been involved with fishing for a few weeks and and so far have only been out once. The rest of the time I have been trying to learn as much as I can from books, magazines, and the internet. Recently I managed to discover how my reels work - Tick!

My next challenge is to sort out what the relationship is between the diameter of monofilament nylon line and its breaking strain. I thought this was simple, but there again, this is the bloke who didn't realise how slippery carp are!

Why don't manufactures print the breaking strain on the line? Seems madness to me...

The three fishing reels I own were supplied preloaded with line. They all seem to be around 0.30mm diameter, when measured, plus or minus a few hundredths of a mm. This seems to indicate that they are all, there or thereabout, 12lb breaking strain. This is based on the fact that one of the fishing reel's pre-loaded spools is marked 12lb with a small sticker. A hunt through the internet revealed that each manufacturer states their own diameter to breaking strain specifications, and that these can vary considerably.

I also found THIS download (272Kb) for a line test carried out by Tackle Box very informative and up to date. This is all very well but why? Why make it so flaming difficult. Am I missing something in my haze of spurious information? For the life of me, I cannot understand why on earth the manufacturers do not add this vital information to the reels of line? If the diameter of the line does not equate directly to the line strength what's the point?

I'm going for a pint!

Ralph.