Terraplane,

Here's how I do it without wasting any fluorocarbon line. First, spool your reel with cheap monofilament line. Attach a heavy weight. I use a beatup 3/4 oz jig. Cast it as far as you can, then pull out a few extra feet of line. This simulates the lure dropping onto the bottom of your fishing hole and will be used up by re-ties and breakoffs. Now snip the line at the reel. Splice your fluorocarbon onto the mono with a blood knot. You now have pretty close to what you'll use, without waste. You have to do the above procedure only once per reel. When it's time to re-tie, just cut at the splice point.

You know how you almost always have a little line left over on the spool when you buy new line? You hate to waste it, but there's not enough there to fill another reel. For this reason I recommend buying the biggest spool of fluorocarbon you can afford. I buy mine in 1000 yard spools. (Seaguar) That way, the wasted line is a one-time event, as opposed to, say, five times when buying 200 yd spools.

Jim