Cleaning Your Fly Lines

By Author: Rogers Stevens
Total Articles: 25
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Your fly lines may get dirty in different ways. Just keeping it in the case on the reel in a warm car may be enough to make it the requirement to be cleaned.
 
We all accidentally drag the lines through the dirt, step on it, or get some other way to get it dirty. Things such as bug repellent and sunscreen are also common pollutants. Follow these steps and you will have your fly line ready to work in no time. I have utilized these methods for some time with an assortment of fly line brands with no adverse impacts. That being said, the reader is eventually responsible for any results that may cause from utilizing this procedure. I have no way of knowing, for instance, if your line may have to come into contact with some chemical when fly dressing is implemented, it may cause the line to degrade. I have never seen this happening.

1. Re-attach the fly reels

I generally utilize a nail knot to tie the backing to the line, but there are others you can utilize. Be sure to check the tag ends so that the fly reels ...
... are not getting tangled to the long tags.

2. Implement dressing

Utilize a new clean rag and soak it within the dressing of fly lines. You will repeat the procedure you utilized when you stripped the line out of the bucket with the dressing on the rag. Make sure to keep the rag with enough fly line dressing on it. Moreover, keep on stripping arm lengths of line and be sure to strip it on a clean surface. If you have a line winder, utilize that so you don’t get your line dirty again.
 
You can utilize a fly line dressing that is made for this purpose. Or else, many of us have explored that other products designed for use on the plastics work equally good at a much lesser cost. Some people also utilize the fly lines for saltwater fly fishing. Just be sure what you utilize is designed for utilization on plastics and possibly silicone based.

3. Neat line

Slowly strip line out of bucket through a wet clean rag, grasping the air tight enough to make line squeak as pulled. Check the rag periodically, and when it gets dirty, go for a clean one. Pulling at an arm’s length every time will assist to eradicate line memory.

4. Remove the fly lines from the reel

Strip your fly lines from the reel into the bucket of warm soapy water all the way back. This may be a good time to go ahead and strip your backing and re-reel it back on to ensure there are no tangles. You don’t want to learn it in a hard way when you get a big fish.