Friday, August 12, 2016

Line Maintenance and Warm Water Fishing

As a fisherman who lives in SE Ohio, I do not spend a lot of time fishing cool, clean, flowing water for trout.  My time is spent in ponds, lakes, and slow flowing rivers that can leave a lot of filth on your gear.  Last night I was prepping some gear for a trout trip coming up soon, and saw that the line on my 3wt reel was filthy.  Beyond dirty.  All of the exposure to algae, silt, mud, etc... in the whopping 2 months since the line's last cleaning had left it a disgusting mess.


Line cleaning is a pretty simple, inexpensive way to improve the performance of your line and prolong its life.  I know a lot of folks who fish primarily clean trout streams who tell me line cleaning is not nearly as necessary, but if you are fishing similar environments that I find in Ohio, cleaning your line can be a big help.  I have been using Loon Line Speed for a few years, and the $7-8 bottle lasts quite a while.  Cleaning your line should only take a few minutes.  I prefer to stretch my line across the yard (above the grass, of course) between two points.  Once the line is secured above the ground, apply a liberal dose of Line Speed to the applicator pad.


Enclose the pad around your fly line, and walk along the line, sliding the applicator pad over the fly line.  I prefer to walk down and back, being sure to get a good coating of Line Speed on my line.  I let that sit for a few minutes, then take a clean piece of cloth (I use cut up bits of old t-shirts), fold it around the fly line, pinch, and walk the length of line down and back again.  What you will see when you take the piece of cloth off your line might shock you.  Here's my cloth from last night before I started.


And after.


I didn't stop there with the line, I also took a few minutes to wipe down the rod and reel, which were also quite dirty.  Both the rod blank and the guides pick up some of the dirt and grime from the fly line.  I clean my line and gear fairly often, and it still surprises me how dirty in can get so quickly.  Not only will your line shoot and float better when it's clean, but it will also last longer.  The last fly line I replaced was my 5wt line, which was a good SA Mastery Trout floating line that I cleaned regularly.  I got nearly 8 years out of that fly line, which seemed pretty good considering how often that rod gets used.  Line maintenance will only cost you a few bucks and a few minutes of your time, and could save you a lot of money on fly lines on top of the improved performance. 






1 comment:

  1. Cool post! I have really started paying attention to how clean my lines are when I started fishing for carp and I could see the dirt buildup. Went out in the yard and cast that clean line and immediately went in and cleaned all of my fly lines. Definitely worth the time put in. I also use a line dressing/cleaner every now and then which makes the line shoot like a greased rocket but I have heard that it can be a detriment after a couple of outings.

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