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%!