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Thread: Fly line cleaners-treatments

  1. #11
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Redding
    Posts
    228

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    Quote Originally Posted by Sonoman View Post
    Ricards, do you have problem with dirt clinging to the mucilin?

    thanks
    No, but I am careful to keep my line out of the dirt. I am a big fan of double taper floating lines. From my experience, once the forward section of a floating line shows evidence of wear, cracking, and abrasion, it's history. I like the idea of being able to reverse the line and start over with a fresh taper. The downside, of course, is that DT lines take up more room on the reel spool.
    "Radiate, radiate, radiate far and wide as the lines of latitude and longitude on a globe."
    - John Muir

  2. #12
    Join Date
    Oct 2015
    Location
    Santa Rosa, Calif
    Posts
    1,015

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bill Kiene semi-retired View Post
    I am pretty lazy so I don't do anything until I feel the line is really "dragging" through the guides.

    Then I use to just get a new line off the shelf....

    Actually, "back in the day" the fly line companies would give us staff members all the free fly lines we wanted.


    Al Perryman once said to wash the line with a mild detergent, wipe dry and fish it.


    I would wash it with a mild soap, wipe it dry and apply "what ever" line dressing you want with a soft cloth.

    Then try to wipe it all off or polish it off like car wax.


    In the old days people used Mucilin paste, red or green. Green has silicone.

    Cortland had a cloth patch soaked in their formula that was in every fly line box or you could buy it separately.


    There was "Russ Peak Line Dressing" too. Russ built lovely fiberglass fly rods in southern Cal.

    After putting a fly rod together Russ coated the entire rod blank, wraps and all, with a finish of some type.


    Loone Products will have something.


    I remember tropical saltwater guys used WD40 on rag.



    If you use one fly line a lot I would ask your grandmother to buy you one for Christmas?


    We had people come in with outfits with old Cortland 444 Peach float lines that were 30 years old and were like new?



    We had people come in with new floating fly lines that they said sank?

    Then we had others come in with new sinking lines that did not sink?

    One of my staff said, let them trade each other? Only kidden.......




    One time I was loading up a reel for a customer with a new Scientific Angler Aircel Supreme weight forward 4 floater.

    It seamed like it was way too long? so I measured it and it was actually two lines on one plastic spool.

    I just measured the length and cut it in half and measured the diameter and trimmed the points a little.

    The lines were so thin that the "lady" at SA did not notice she missed the end and beginning to cut it so we got two lines.



    You can not believe in 50 years how many weight forward fly lines I found that were on the reel backwards?

    The customers commented that "yes, it never really cast very well." No kidden........



    We even found shooting heads on backwards but that was not as tragic.


    Young Paul Boley, Harry Boley's son, came in for some advice on catching some Half-pounders about 30 years ago.

    He had one of his dad's old outfits and it had no backing? I explained the reality and I put backing on his old Pflueger Medalist fly reel.

    Later he told me that very evening he hooked about a 5# Steelhead above Watt Avenue and the fish took out all his fly line, way into

    his new backing.



    I guess fly lines are around $100 but most think they are the most important part of an outfit....



    Because of the reputation of my staff, fly lines were actually the largest part of our business' sales dollars.



    Bob Giannoni would come in and measure the "points" of all the lets say, DT3F lines we had. He likes small points.


    40 years ago we sold hundreds of Cortland and Scientific Angler 30 foot factory shooting heads in all sizes and sink rates.

    Heads were a huge part of our market in those days, before the development of integrated sink-tip fly lines.

    We would take a grain scale and weigh every shooting head that came in and put the weight on the box.

    Cortland's heads varied quite a bit which was a good thing for matching lines to individual rods.

    Scientific Angler heads did not vary much so they were usually spot on the IGFA designated weights.



    There are lots of thing that the customer is better off not knowing.

    Like the fact that the head weight of Weight forward fly lines can vary a lot.

    I told that to someone once and he was never happy after that.......



    Fly fishing equipment today is so amazing that most can cast this new stuff pretty well.
    Bill, I remember you and I having this same discussion years ago and at that time I was Tarpon fishing 3 weeks per year, I also remember both of us agreeing that after pulling on tarpon for 3 weeks the line should be just thrown away.....you were right then and I still believe that now a days...Mexico is just about the same thing, when I get home i buy all new lines, cause the old ones are like dish rags

    Carl Blackledge

  3. #13
    Join Date
    Feb 2005
    Location
    the Lost Sierra
    Posts
    750

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    I have over a gallon of Russ Peaks from the Steamboat days. Never found anything better before or since. When lines get really bad I'll clean them with a mild abrasive such as Bar Keepers Friend or a Magic Eraser. Abrasives open up a fresh layer of plasticizer that turns stiff lines back into pliable ones.

  4. #14
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    Tejas !!
    Posts
    792

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    Thanks for the info all,

    ended up picking up some Rio Agent x in a kit. Hope it works- one line is really dry and stiff for only being a year old but is my fault for leaving it in the car

  5. #15
    Join Date
    Dec 2014
    Location
    Fresno
    Posts
    140

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    I clean my lines with Dawn liquid dish soap, rinse them in clean water, dry them off and then put a thin coat of 303, wipe it off and buff it with a cloth baby diaper. You do remember cloth baby diapers.
    Jay Murakoshi

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