Posted by Jim E (24.116.99.140) on October 09, 2003 at 14:24:10:
Just a reminder. The tip of the week will be posted every Thursday. If you have a good tip that they would like to share, you can email your tip to me flyfish@cableone.net and I will post it, giving you full credit. Depending on how many I get it might take a few weeks before it appears.
Fly line twist
Ever have this problem ? I sure do and have, especially on days where I do a lot of fishing with streamers. Not only do I have the usual line memory coils but they also twist up a little making it sometimes impossible to shoot the line much at all. I also think when you are standing in faster water the slack line floating around your legs tends to twist up some too from the mixing currents your legs create. This can be frustrating and often causes the line to end up in a tangled mess.
To help correct this, at the end of the day (or when it really gets bad during the day) I just cut my fly off and then pull off all of the fly line from the reel. Let all of it drift down stream and straighten out, preferably in strong current. I prefer the current to be strong enough to cause my rod to flex under the force it’s exerting on the fly line. This way I know it’s forcing the twists out of it. After a couple of minutes, I reel the line up evenly on the spool and leave it like that until I get home to later clean the line or tie on a fly again and commence fishing.
Slight stretching of the line will help remove memory coils and many fishermen do this, but I haven’t found that this helps much with removing twists. Bob Summers sent in a tip saying that when he cleans his lines he attaches the line to a swivel located on the fence in the backyard. Then as he works his way towards the end of the line, cleaning it as he goes, he forces out the twists as the swivel allows.
With brand new lines I have found that it is best to go ahead and unroll the entire line and chase out the inevitable twists out BEFORE ever spooling it up on the reel. If not, your first trip with the new line might quite possibly leave you plagued with line twists no matter what fly you are fishing with and what brand of fly line you are using. A frustration I don’t care to have if I can prevent it.
Thanks for reading. And again, as always, if you have any tips that you would like to share just email them to me (you will be given full credit). Also, feel free to comment.
Jim Enns <*))))))))><