Fly lines can be kept new for years

Choose fly lines by reputation, options, ‘castability,’ and durability

By Skip Clement

As a lifelong fly fisher, I noticed my friends are like me in one way—we share an unwavering angling avocation for clean water and responsible conservation. Still, we are often baffled about discarding fly fishing items that are no longer used or useful. This seems like a metaphor for how we choose to ‘manage’ fly lines’ health—keep it new or lose it.

NOTE: My friend Angie Roth never discards anything about fly fishing. Everything related to fly fishing that her father and great-grandfather collected as anglers is in working or usable order. Her collection of fly fishing gear is museum-worthy.

Textured fly lines

I prefer textured fly lines for casting (SA Amplitude) but not nymphing because casting has little to do with that. SA Amplitude textured line shoots out of the tip-top as if an explosion had happened. Casting is easier for me with the SA line, measured against smooth-coated fly lines. In my experience, the textured line versus the coated line has little impact on short casts. With longer casting, the difference is enormous.

An SA-textured line is of no value when nymphing either. Use a smooth surface line to catch MoBetta—a religious belief I share. Nymphing has little to do with casting but everything to do with managing the lead fly’s passage over benthic depths where most trout will feed at a speed slightly exceeding the current.

Review what you have.

Having pared down my rods and reels successfully left me with a hangover of 12 fly lines, some independent of a reel and some with a companion reel. With less than an MI6 Scotland Yard lab inspection, five lines were bad (faded color and coating cracks), and one that still looked good but on inspection during cleaning— three deep cuts from coral. One is a coldwater fly line for winter steelies in Walnut Creek, Pennsylvania. It looked okay, but I’d never use it again. So, five out of 12 didn’t make a team cut.

NOTE 1: Use cracked or fly lines that are not serviceable anymore and can be used as your practice knot line. If you do not seat the knots fully, you can make many knots out of 100+ feet of the fly line.

Two beers

Google fly line longevity and you will notice many forums gathered around two hundred fifty deployments before wearing out. A certain number of years, with seven being the most popular? Most importantly, preserving fly lines’ lives is not a considerable debate. The task is simple: clean fly lines with warm water and rub them dry with the rag shown. Your fly lines will stay new for years unless they are cut.

Always insisting on the most straightforward way led me to the following solution. First, cold beer, fill the sink with’ warm’ water, then pull off all the fly line, feeding it into the water to soak. For the second beer, use a blue shop towel (it is not a throwaway) and feed the line through it to dry on a table. You can use a line cleaner next, but I re-reel, and that’s it. I think the blue shop towel does so much better than a paper towel or rag that I’m good and has been for over two decades.

NOTE 2: SA recommends their cleaner/lubricant for textured fly lines. I admit the cleaner is better than a Blue Shop Towel wipe.

Not maintaining fly lines that cost $70 to $135 per qualifies for a cabinet appointment

Cleaning fly lines is a big deal. I tried following a program of cleaning after use in saltwater, but it was not 100% adhered to. My tip was that the SA Amplitude line, or any modern one, be cast with less physical energy than the smoothly coated RIO lines. Also, textured lines are likely to gunk up more quickly, obviously.

Cracked

The plastic outer coating throughout most of the industry is polyvinyl chloride (PVC) concoctions. Too much sun, too dry, and they still crack in time. You can continue to use that line, but it abrades the line and guides, especially the rod tip-top. In addition, cracked cores allow water to seep in and spread over a high percentage of the length, changing the line from floating to something else. Also, on streamer retrieve, you might experience too many wakes.

The worst part of giving a deathbed resuscitation to a cracked fly line is giving up accuracy.

Asia

Temo, Alibaba, and other Chinese vendors sell everything related to fly fishing equipment. A handful of items are outstanding, and many are good, but many are so bad it is hard to describe. Under financial restraints, deals are hard to pass up. Be prepared to search, and when you find what you can accept, put away your wallet—search twice as hard as before. Patience is the reward.

My two cents

I bought a TEMO line for this review. Stop

Shop at your local fly shop, get with it…

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Major Brands of Fly Lines:

• Royal Wulff Products . . .
• Cortland . . .  
• RIO Products . . .
• Cabelas . . . I do not know who makes it for them.
• Scientific Angler . . .
• Airflo . . . 
• Monic . . .
• Teeny . . .
• I think Flip Pallot has fly-line models, as does Kelly Galloup

Illustrations by Thom Glace are rainbow trout, brown trout, and brook trout–used with permission. NOTE 3: Brook Trout Indigenous in the East, including Canada’s Eastern Provinces. Rainbow is in the Northwest US, Canada, and throughout Alaska. The Brown trout is from Germanic countries.

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