Here is what I remember concerning fishing line for cues. Cortland line was never used on a large mass scale for cues by production cue makers. Cortland was more utilized by a smaller group of custom cue makers and was never manufactured by the Cortland line company with the thought of being mass produced for cues- it was a fishing line by priority. The small number of cue makers using Cortland line for cues had no input into the viability of that specific fishing line from a manufacturing perspective. I do believe that the Penn fishing supply manufacturer also produced a fishing line used by some custom cue makers.
Nylon filament line became a more dominant fishing line for several economic and perhaps fisherman choice reasons. Nylon used on cue wraps was much more dominant due to economic factors as well. Many larger production cue house like McDermott offered nylon wraps on their cues, especially in their lower priced cues. However, there were some top players that did use nylon wraps on some of their cues, as they may have preferred a slicker feel to that wrap- I do recall that at least one of Ray Martin's Gus Szamboti cues did have a nylon wrap as original. I do not believe that all of Ray's Szamboti cues had a nylon wrap - I personally handled one that was a linen wrap- it may have been changed by the new owner- not sure.
The sheer volume of cues being made during the post Hustler movie pool boom 1961 to 1968 brought on the search for a more economical high production cue wrap- so nylon just fit the bill at that point. Honestly, only guys who were really into pool had the playing experience to truly develop a preference for a certain type of wrap - most novice players had no idea about wrap differences and just bought what was affordable and available at the time.
