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A critical issue for any angler concerned about being competitive
Outlining the problem
There is a very serious problem within the sport fishing line market within the UK and Europe caused by the deliberate misstatement of diameter and breaking strain information on packaging by companies wishing to gain sales by making their products appear better than they actually are.
This situation has existed for many years but has grown increasingly extreme in the past five years. There is a great deal of comment and unrest amongst the more informed angler around the country as to how this can be allowed to persist.
The effect of this misrepresentation is to give those companies carrying it out an advantage in the market as consumers are led to believe that their products are stronger (and therefore better) than they actually are and therefore they will use products that will present less well or fail below the required breaking point.
The critical factor determining the performance quality of a line is its diameter and its breaking strain and the relationship between the two. The stronger a line is for its diameter the better.
There are two types of deception. Firstly simple exaggeration of breaking strain where companies claim considerably higher performance that is actually true in reality and secondly. Stepping of diameter where companies supply a thicker line than stated to increase the breaking strain.
Exaggeration of Breaking Strain
This is mainly practiced by southern European producers who generally state the correct or close to correct diameter, but then make inflated claims on the label regarding the breaking strain up to almost double what it actually is. The main culprits in this area seem to be Italian. Shown below are tests shown conducted by the European Fishing Tackle Trade Association in 2005, and that were published in Tackle Trade World Magazine in August 2005 that show how much the actual strength falls below what they claim.
This is a fairly straightforward case of overstating the actual performance of their product. It is also worth remembering that this is a straight pull test done on dry line and without a knot. Fishing line by definition can only be used with a knot in it and when wet, and this can cause breaking strain performance to decline by another 30%. Responsible companies will label their products around 10% below the actual breaking strain.
A more recent entrant into the market in the UK is a Spanish company that has also adopted this approach with actual breaking strains between 25% and 36% less than stated or if you look at it the other way round being overstated by between 42% and 54%!
Stepping up of Diameter
This practice is a little more subtle but is equally misleading with possibly more detrimental consequences for the consumer. It has also been practiced for many years and has become accepted practice for certain brands. The most notable brand has been doing it for 35 years. This involves supplying a higher diameter than that stated on the label to make the line stronger than it would normally be for the stated diameter and appear to be stronger for its diameter than it actually is. There is normally a range of diameters and the one above will be actually put on the spool of the one below.
We have given two examples of this practice that are currently being practiced by two of the better known brands on the UK market.
Brand 1
There can be no defense that it is within a notional level of tolerance as the diameter actually used is higher than the stated diameter of the next item up in the range.
Brand 2
In most cases the breaking strains don’t match up to the claimed breaking strains either but not in such an extreme way as the Italians.
These products are aimed at competition anglers who are fishing matches for both prestige and prize money.
Using the thinnest diameter possible improves bait presentation and therefore bites and catch rates so a lot is at stake based on using the thinnest strongest line. The figures shown above for the percentage increase shown is of course only part of the story as this is for the diameter. The actual cross section area increases much more and significant. I give you the examples below.
As an example we take one of the lines above and show how much thicker the line actually is than it claims both in diameter and in cross section.
Diameter Variation Comparison of two different lines claiming to be 0.10mm
Stated Diameter Actual Diameter 0.10mm 0.134mm
Cross Section Variation Comparison two different lines claiming to be 0.10mm
Stated Diameter Actual Diameter 0.10mm 0.134mm 0.0247mm² 0.0443mm²
The cross section area is 79% greater than stated!!
The cross section area of material that the angler is then using to achieve his goal is a massive 79% thicker compared with what he thinks he is using. How does this affect your delicate presentation!!!
The above calculations are made by using the simple basic formula for area of a circular cross section TTr²
How it should be Ultima products are produced to exacting tolerances Diameter to within +/- 5% and Breaking Strains are designed to exceed stated breaking strains, and is never less than what you see on the label. If fact, we tend to err on the side of caution an you will find that our lines are often as much as 10% stronger than stated. There is no reason why all lines shouldn't be like this. Anglers are simply being mislead by unscrupulous manufactures who see a way to profit by exaggerating the performance of their products which can result in serious consequences for consumers.
If you have found instances of such misstatement and where it you feel misled, please email us at info@ultimauk.com
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