The first few casts with a new flyline are magical. The line feels slightly slippery and flows smoothly through the guides to deposit your fly in exactly the right spot. This is how fly fishing is supposed to be. But as we all know, that new-line feel is eventually going to fade away. After numerous trips through the guides, the line may cast fine, but you know it’s not as good as it once was.
What causes the line to lose its mojo, and can we do anything to bring back the magic? Before we can talk about restoration, we need to discuss the Unholy Trinity — scum, abrasion, and lubrication.
Scum
Anyone who has fished a slowly flowing river, lowland lake, or neighborhood pond has no doubt noticed that the surface of the water is sometimes covered with a dull-looking film of “scum.” This film is usually just a few thousandths of an inch thick, but in some nutrient-rich water bodies, cyanobacteria can create scums that are several inches deep and have the consistency of sick-kid snot. Chemically speaking, this scum is a complex mix of lipids (oils and fats), proteins, and polysaccharides (sugars), along with a smorgasbord of organic and nonorganic particulates (primarily pollen, dust, and bits of invertebrates).
Like it or not, the surface of your fly line will eventually accumulate a thin patina of this scum. The process may take several weeks, if you fish clear Sierra streams, or just half an hour, if you tromp along the banks of a Central Valley bass pond. Floating lines are the most susceptible, since they spend 100 percent of the time in the scum zone. An article in Bioscience describes the mechanical properties of these films nicely when it states: “the complex microarchitecture of the surface film offers an excellent locomotory substratum (analogous to moist agar).” Moist agar may be an excellent locomotory substratum for bacteria and single-celled animals, but I can assure you it doesn’t improve the casting performance of your fly line one bit. This stuff is going to cling to your line with the tenacity of a dachshund humping a dinner guest’s leg. If you want your line to cast well, the scum has to go.
Abrasion
After a season or two of regular use, the surface of your fly line will develop microscopic scratches, courtesy of specks of abrasive dust and dirt and the occasional misplaced step. You can slow this process by paying attention to where you drop your line and by cleaning it frequently, but abrasion is a reality we all have to live with. These scratches increase line friction in much the same way that sanding a wood floor makes it harder to do guitar-hero power slides in cotton socks and Captain America underpants. The scratches also provide a comfy home for scum, effectively making them a cast-impairing double whammy. There’s not much you can do for a heavily worn line, but thankfully, a light to moderate amount of surface scarring is far from terminal.
Lubricant Washout
Most flyline makers incorporate silicone-based lubricants in the plastic coating of their lines. These lubricants continuously migrate to the surface of the line, providing a friction-reducing film. Eventually, the lubricant reservoir runs dry, and the line loses much of its slippery quality. While there’s not much you can do to replenish the reservoir, a coating of lubricants can help bring back the magic for awhile.
Restoring Your Line
The first order of business in line restoration is getting rid of the patina of scum. Go online or ask any fly fisher, and you’ll hear a number of suggestions on how to rid your line of this corruption. Most people don’t spend much time overthinking this. Every so often, they’ll drag the line through a Kleenex or an untucked fishing shirt and get back to fishing. And despite what some folks might tell you, the simple mechanical action of pulling a wet line through a piece of fabric can be quite effective.
However, it won’t remove the seriously caked-on stuff. For that you are going to need some chemistry. Scientists refer to such chemicals as “surfactants” (shorthand for “surface active agents”) and spend a lot of time and money figuring out things like critical micelle concentrations and interface energies. While this kind of technical knowledge is important for cleaning things such as surgical implements and Mars rovers, fly fishers can relax. Your fly lines can be cleaned using a common surfactant — hand (bar) soap. No doubt you have heard of it? (Dish detergent, by the way, might be too harsh.)
To clean a heavily soiled line, soak it for about 30 minutes in bucket filled with warm water and a well-mixed solution of soap. This will give the scum time to hydrate and soften and allow the soap solution to get wicked into any crud-filled micro-scratches. Following the soak, strip the line through a clean microfiber cloth to remove the soap-softened scum. Microfiber towels pull dirt off the line using simple mechanical action and the intermolecular effect known as van der Waals forces, something your regular fabric rag simply can’t do. Follow the microfiber towel wipe with a rinse in clean water, and you are good to go.
There are a number of products advertised as fly-line cleaners. While they may be simple to use, none of them really work any better than soap, water, and a microfiber cloth. How do I know this? First of all, the major line manufacturers recommend cleaning their lines with soap and water and even provide online videos showing you how to do it. I have also conducted some independent testing. There’s not enough room in this article to go into the details, but through the development of a fluorescent synthetic scum (in consultation with a professor of microbiology) and UV-enhanced photography, I found that hand soap and water, aided by the dirt-grabbing action of a microfiber towel, is a very effective fly-line cleaner.
Staying Clean
Now that you have decontaminated your line, is there any way to keep it that way? Sadly, no, but don’t despair, because our old friend the microfiber towel comes to the rescue again. You can significantly reduce your cleaning chores if you draw the line through a dry or wet microfiber towel every half hour or so when you’re fishing. An even better solution that I have been using for the past few years is to wear a finger cot (aka a finger frock, finger stall, or finger condom) made from a microfiber towel. The line is pulled over the cot and thus cleaned every time it is retrieved. I am not aware of any tackle company that sells microfiber cots, but they are pretty simple to make. Just chop a microfiber towel into suitable-sized squares and sew along one edge to make a tube. Unless you have Boban Marjanovic–size paws, you should get at least half a dozen cots from a $1 towel.
What if the line gets really grungy while you are fishing and you forgot to pack a five-gallon bucket of soapy water in your fishing vest? Simple. Before you head off on your fishing trip, grab a piece of wet microfiber towel and rub some wet hand soap into it. Pop this in a Ziploc baggie and shove that in a pocket of your vest. Drag the line through the towel and keep fishing. Note, though, that the soap may impair flotation until it washes off, probably within a cast or two.
Friction Reducers
Having dealt with the issue of cleanliness, it is time to talk about reducing the friction associated with an abraded surface and lack of lubricants. This is where we finally turn to fly-line dressings. You knew we’d get there eventually. There are a number of products on the market made specifically for dressing fly lines and other products that use similar chemistry, but that are not designed for fly-fishing purposes. While many folks extol the virtues of these products and provide colorful testimony about how much they improve their casting, I have yet to find any published reports of quantitative testing. Sensing a potential Nobel Prize for Fly Fishing (they do have that category, right?), I decided it was my duty to fill this crucial gap in the knowledge of humanity.
Kinetic Friction Testing
If you aren’t particularly interested in how I tested fly-line dressings and only want to know which ones scored the highest, just skip this section. I won’t take offense. So how do you test the friction-mitigating effects of fly-line treatments without access to a materials-science laboratory? If you have a few thousand bucks, you can always buy a commercial friction tester. Aside from the rather steep cost, there are some problems using these devices for fly lines. First of all, they rely on a metal sled that accepts a flat sheet of material for testing. That’s not really a great setup for a skinny flyline. Then you have to consider the effect of the heavy sled on soft plastic. If the sled deforms the plastic, the friction test will be compromised. Last, but certainly not least, there’s the issue of how closely a slow-moving metal sled can mimic a fly line whistling through guides at over 10 meters per second.
I gave the issue some thought and realized that the solution isn’t all that complicated. All you really need is a basic understanding of Newtonian physics, reasonable familiarity with some simple statistical functions, and, most importantly, a spouse who gave up hope long ago that you’d ever be the man of her dreams and who has settled for “Well, he’s harmless.” What I ended up with was a worn (but not cracked) fly line strung between two fence posts, subject to a constant tension of 1 kilogram. The friction-testing sled was the top section of a three-piece rod. The test itself involved propelling the rod top down the line using a rubber band to provide a consistent force (2.67N for you engineers and physicists) and measuring exactly how far the top went. The distance the rod tip travels is directly proportional to the coefficient of kinetic friction of the line. Put another way, the more slippery the line, the farther the rod top will travel. While I don’t recommend it, you can prove this to yourself by waxing your newly sanded wood floor and repeating the guitar-hero power slides.
For each test, the rod tip was slingshotted down the line 20 times. The first 10 slings were conducted on an untreated, fully cleaned line, which was sprayed with distilled water between every sling. The water spray duplicates casting on water without the need to dismantle the test equipment for every run. The first 10 slings established a data set for the untreated line, and this was repeated for every product tested. The line was then dried with a clean microfiber towel, treated with dressing (per the manufacturer’s instructions), and given another ten slings and distilled-water applications. Following each product test, the line was triple cleaned with a clean microfiber towel soaked in a 1 percent detergent solution (the concentration used to clean birds after an oil spill), rinsed three times in tap water, and dried with another clean microfiber towel. The triple-clean/triple-rinse process ensured no contaminants or product residuals interfered with the tests.
The Findings
During some initial shakedown tests, I noticed something that actually relates to casting technique. If the fly line developed waves during the shoot, distance was reduced by up to 15 percent. The bigger the waves, the greater the reduction in distance. This was a significant problem, so I spent quite a bit of time working on a hair-trigger release mechanism that provided wave-free releases. While working through this particular problem, I was reminded of something my friend Rudi Ferris told me many years back: “The key to a good [shooting-head] cast is a clean release” A clean release is when the rod top isn’t counterflexing significantly prior to or after the loop leaves the top. I had always known Rudi was right, but was surprised and delighted to see it so clearly demonstrated in the tests.
The other thing I found that makes a significant difference is water. Like many dedicated fly fishers, I do a lot of practice casting over grass. I have often wondered if a dry line is better or worse from a distance perspective. The tests showed that a wet line shoots 12 percent farther than a dry line. Seven products were tested, five of which are specifically made for fly lines. All of the line dressings were purchased from a fly-fishing retailer and applied as directed. The results separated out into three categories.
And the Winners Are . . .
Quite frankly, I had expected most of the dressings to have a similar performance, but two products stood out. Russ Peak’s Line Dressing (from Umpqua Feather Merchants) and Airflo’s Whizz Lube both reduced friction by over 12 percent. These products are a cinch to apply, and there’s no need to buff the line or wait for the product to dry. Two other dressings, silicone mucilin (from Thames Fishing Products Ltd.) and Umpqua’s Glide, reduced friction by eight percent.
No Measurable Effect
A number of people use Armorall to dress their fly lines, and it certainly gives a fly line a slippery feel when dry. However, the testing showed that Armorall quickly washes off the line, and as a result the product scored almost exactly the same as an undressed line. So while it may be great for protecting your dashboard and tires, it really isn’t much good as a flyline dressing. Leave this stuff in the garage.
From Bad to Worse
Silicone lubricants come in a number of formulations. One that feels particularly slippery on your fingers is silicone O-ring grease, a waterproof lubricant used in numerous potable-water applications. I have used this stuff for years on faucets and water filters, and it seemed like it might make a great fly-line dressing. I was wrong. Apparently, the slippery feeling on warm fingers does not translate into reduced friction on a cool flyline. Friction was increased by 9 percent. Too bad, I have loads of this stuff.
Dressing for Success
So what is the take-home message from these tests? Most fly-line dressings will provide some benefit on older fly lines, but Russ Peak and Whizz Lube are clearly the go-to products for anyone who needs to shoot lines long distances or needs a silky-smooth roll cast. For the record, I have no professional association with either of these companies, and the store where I purchased the products was unaware of my intention to conduct these tests.
Before I sign off, I have one last word of caution for anyone who decides to do their own research on this topic. Absentmindedly typing “removing silicone lubricants” in an Internet search engine may result in some unexpected search results. You were warned.
