I always hear fishermen talk about how nylon degrades faster than fluorocarbon, but is taking 600 years to biodegrade really a plus? Is there any tippet that is truly biodegradable? Surprisingly, yes. Biotip is a brand of tippet that completely biodegrades in just 6 years. The company claims their product preforms just as well as fluorocarbon.
Notice how the biotip is considerably less stealthy underwater.
Despite the overreaching claims made in biotip’s marketing, their product absolutely does work. I fished the biotip and fluorocarbon interchangeably and noticed no large changes in fish-catching performance. I suspect biotip preforms slightly worse than nylon in terms of stealth.
So is it worth it? That really depends on what’s worth your while.
I only became interested in biodegradable tippet because of something strange that happened to me a few summers ago. I was fishing up a vibrant mountain stream. It was mid-morning in late July, the water was cool, and the sun was bright. As I rounded the next bend, I spotted something strange ahead of me. It was a small brown ball dangling from a branch over the river. It was totally motionless as it hung over the rushing water. On closer inspection, it was a dead bird. This dead bird:
I pulled the barbed hook from its beak and buried its desiccated corpse on the riverbank nearby. This robin did not die for sport, it died because someone broke off their fly on a snag. Now, every snag I break off, every fly that I leave, I think about this bird and wonder.
This is great! I’m going to have to get some of that tippet for sure.
I bought a PIOpod last year and another one this year because I end up spending so much of my time cleaning up other peoples fishing line whenever I’m out. I’m even thinking of upgreading to the bigger size for next year!
Thanks again for pointing out the biodegradable tippet!
Completely degrades over 6 years? I wonder how much % it degrades year to year and if I have to date it like I do - did mono and replace every year or…?
Like @jalapeno I look for and recover snagged flies. If I have to break the fly off my tippet usually breaks at the fly.
I saw on the biotip website about 18-24 months in your fly pack.
Guenther that’s really some photo of the bird with the fly hook, what a scene. Poor bird …
Last summer I found a fresh-ish brown trout carcass in the water, roughly 15 inches. I cut open its stomach just to see and found a giant chubby Chernobyl lodged in its intestine, probably killing it.
What bothers me about the PIOpod is the cost; Come On, it’s a small plastic bottle with a lid and a hole in it!
I made a small PIOpod out of a 35mm film canister. I rigged a lanyard-keeper hold the top onto the tube. It works OK but is hard to get longer lengths of line into.
I also made one out of an old film canister and wrapped it with velcro hooks. It works quite well and will hold a lot of line. What it doesn’t do as well is hold small tag end snippets, so those have to go in my chest pack.
I could make a longer Tippet Tamer out of a plastic tube for candy or Nuun electrolyte tablets. If I can figure out a way to put a plug in the middle of the tube, then I could have a compartment with a snap on top for snippets, and the open compartment at the bottom to wind the longer lengths onto the velcro hooks.
The best waste tippet-mono line container I’ve seen is the Mono Master.
It works with all lengths of fluoro and mono but I’ve had one of them get worn or broken so the winder section wouldn’t stay on and its replacement somehow got snagged crawling under a log jam and pulled apart. And at $20 + shipping, ouch!
@Tea_and_Tenkara perhaps you can design and 3D print something more affordable!
For C&R, we are encouraged to cut the line from flies for a fish that swallowed the hook. Many years ago I caught a ~16" Brook Trout in an alpine lake. It had a kype with teeth! It went into the skillet. In its stomach I found a rusted barbed snelled hook.
Thanks for this thread. The human race is full of slobs. I will wade across streams to retrieve my fly and tippet…often recovering other folks line as I go.
I dig your experiment and notes on performance. When I run out of tippet I will investigate this biodegrading stuff.
Is it 6 years exposed to uv? Can shelf life extend if not exposed to sunlight?
The biotip website said 6 years in water or soil, didn’t mention uv.
I was struck by the first image Guenther put up with the lines shown together and noticed the apparent differences in diameter. They were all supposedly 5x but I looked a little closer and found that the diameter of the biotip 5x is actually .008" - that would be 3x by current metrics.
So heads-up that the actual line diameters of the biotip are 2 points heavier than what you might normally consider. The biotip 6x is .007", which I would call normal 4x, and then the corresponding breakage strength is considerably if you compare by same line diameters.
Ah yes, their XB system. This is another weird marketing choice.
Since their product is weaker than conventional tippet it would have a lower breaking strength at a given X value. They counter this by making it thicker. So their 5XB is as strong as 5X, but the diameter is like 3X.
I can see why they wanted to match the lb test of conventional tippet, but since tippet is sold by diameter this is a misleading solution.
