Do you use a backing (mono or electrical tape) while spooling braid to a wiffle style spool or do you just tie a knot through the holes in the spools to get it started? I keep hearing about using a backing but it seems like tying a knot through the spool holes would prevent any slipping.

I never tie through the holes, rather around the spool. But yes, I always use backing for fluoro or braid. The backing is not to keep the knot from slipping. It is to cushion the line against the spool and help the line to lay down on the spool rather than try and come unraveled (common with the aforementioned line types).

Using backing you can get a lot more mileage out of your braid. Why spool up 300 yards when you are only going to fish with 100?

Thanks fouzman; been toying with the idea of using braid more often so I started doing some research and heard about backing; never knew of it before. I like the idea of electrical tape so I may just have to figure out how to apply the tape and spool me some braid!

It's easy. Pull a piece off the roll, trim it to fit your spool and put it on there. You want the backing all the way around the spool. Then spool away.

Yarn makes good backing material.

I have used mono as backing for braid mostly to keep the braid from digging into itself. Ivick, are you just being funny, or are you serious about yarn ?

The blue painter's tape works great and dont leave a glue sticky residue on the spool.

vet tape. the stretchy kind, like doc's use. works great. that's what the offshore guys used to put around the spool on big spinning reels.

Several years back I spooled a curado with straight braid, and it worked fine for a while. After I set the hook real hard a few times the knot around the spool either started slipping or broke. I thought for the longest time that my drag was messed up but it turned out to just be the braid slipping around the spool. I've never had this problem once after I started using mono backing.