SpiderWire Stealthsmooth X8 Multicolor. The Shore Jigger’s braid!
What is Stealthsmooth X8 Multicolor?
There are several things in fishing, that anglers must compromise to get their dream fish! But luckily, braid isn’t one of them! Everybody knows that no matter how good your reels and rods are, the last word is always on your line! And line is the part of your gear that gets the most “punishment” during fishing! You didn’t know that ha? But it is true! Your braid must face the repeating shock of casting, jigging and retrieve, withstand the extreme tensions from the fight of a monster fish and resist the “burning” effect of strong UV radiation and salt! Is that all? No! It also has to be smooth, quiet as it passes through the guides, must have enough abrasion resistance to withstand a touch on the rocks and retain minimum water between the strands, which occurs in reel spraying and affecting the action of the lures. Some lures and particularly jigs suffer from this extra weight of water trapped in the braid and affects negatively their natural flickering falling action. Here is where Spiderwire Stealthsmooth X8 Multicolor comes into play! A high quality braid made in the US, according the highest standards and demands of pro anglers, that will do nothing less than cover your needs 100%. Based on the notorious philosophy of the Stealthsmooth range, the Stealthsmooth X8 Multicolor is a “tool” for the dedicated inshore and offshore angler that needs to count distance and depth. Stealthsmooth X8 Multicolor is painted in 5 different colors per 10m each, so to allow the angler calculate the casting distance, or depth, (or both) and have a better knowledge about the distance and depth of the jig, (or the fighting fish). Multicolored braids have been for years necessary, for inshore and offshore anglers, for this very reasonable purpose. To know when the fish is close so to prepare the landing net, or to know when your lure is about to reach the bottom so to stop it and animate it to the desired depth!
How to use it for offshore fishing?
For vertical fishing like slow jigging, vertical jigging etc, you simply let your lure drop to the bottom and you count how many colors are “leaving” the spool. If for example you count 6 and a half colors then the depth (and your jig) are at approximately 65 meters. If the first color that left the spool was yellow, then you know that when you see yellow during reel in your line, the fighting fish is 10 meters (plus the leader length) from your boat, and you should be ready for landing.
How to use it for inshore fishing?
- Casting Distance
Some fishing styles like shore jigging, totally rely on a multicolored braids of a higher quality. The reason is that the angler must be aware of the depth and his casting distance. For casting distance, things are easy, since you make a cast and after “touchdown” on the surface, you retrieve and count the colors that “left” your spool. This is an easy way to know the casting distance of specific lures as well as the casting performance of different comparable rods, if you use the exact same reel and lure on different rods.
- PE lines are floating and so is Stealthsmooth X8 Multicolor. So in order to count the depth at the limit of your casting distance, you make a cast and right after your lure hits the surface, you start counting the colors that exit your spool. The lure will fall on a vertical way while 90% of the line that lies on the surface after the cast will remains there. That means that the colors that exit your spool as the lure falls to the bottom – 10% is the approximate depth of the cast. So if you count 3 and a half colors, then the approximate depth is 32 meters. Please note that currents, waves and wind affect the accuracy of the calculation, but the angler has an overview about the overall depth and where to keep his lure while animation, to target different fish species or avoid snags. I will prepare a more detailed article soon, about how to count the depth with multicolored braid, more effectively.
Spiderwire Stealthsmooth X8 Multicolor and fishing styles
Spiderwire Stealthsmooth X8 Multicolor is the ideal braid to use in demanding hardcore fishing styles like popping, vertical jigging, slow jigging, shore jigging, softlure jigging, spinning as well as more technical light fishing styles like light jigging, etc. While Spiderwire Stealthsmooth X8 Multicolor was made to give unrivaled lure action to every lure type, the metered multicolor aspect is a privilege also for live bait fishing inshore or offshore!
Spiderwire Stealthsmooth X8 Multicolor and sizing
I know that in Mediterranean the main unit to measure the thickness of the braid is the PE Japanese counting, but unfortunately, SpiderWire is using a specific mm measuring. So in order to make clear the thickness to PE measurement for Shore Jigging / jigging, bellow is the right conversion:
SpiderWire Stealthsmooth X8 Multicolor 0.15mm = PE 2.0
SpiderWire Stealthsmooth X8 Multicolor 0.19mm = PE 2.5
SpiderWire Stealthsmooth X8 Multicolor 0.23mm = PE 3.0
SpiderWire Stealthsmooth X8 Multicolor 0.29mm = PE 4.0
My personal review
I have been using for a couple of years the Spiderwire Stealthsmooth X8 Camo for my fishing, and the last months I had the chance to use the Spiderwire Stealthsmooth X8 Multicolor during the development process and I must admit that I am super satisfied! I used it to land some impressive fish, I had the chance to test it in very harsh bottoms and sharp rocky shores and it served me better than I expected. Spiderwire Stealthsmooth X8 Multicolor has a perfect balance between smoothness and rigidity and the tight weaving makes it really hard to tangle during casting! I loved the fact that it does not retain water between the strands, so I can be sure that my jigs have a perfect animation while at the same time, tension remains to a low level. Spiderwire Stealthsmooth X8 Multicolor retains its original coloring for a lon, long, long time and it seems that salt and sun have no effect or wearing. Some of my reels still carry the very first braid I used for more than 8 months without a significant alteration. Another awesome aspect is that Spiderwire Stealthsmooth X8 Multicolor comes in 300m spools that is the most popular, but it also comes at 600m spools which is awesome for reels that use more than 300m lines. It also comes in 2000m for those who go for a fishing trip and do not wish to carry many spare spools that “steal” a big volume in our suitcase, or for them that simply love to have available braid at any time and length!
