Friday, May 18, 2012

Painfully Obvious Tip #6

I've been fishing downstream drifts more frequently lately. I started this habit mostly because some of the good lies on a local stream are now blocked by fallen trees from last fall's floods and fishing down and across is now the only way to get to them.

Last week I was having trouble feeding line into one particularly tough spot. I was using a rod I hadn't used in a while, a seven foot four weight, and I attributed my inability to effectively feed line to the fact that I usually did this sort of thing with a nine foot five weight.

Of course, I then had similar difficulty on a subsequent trip feeding line with the five weight. Which is when lightning struck and I realized that I had fished the same line on both the four weight (uplined for small streams) and the five weight.

Which brings us to Painfully Obvious Tip™ #6:
After you fish a scum filled small pond from the bank and have let your line sit in the muddy swill at your feet, take a moment to clean the line.
A couple of minutes cleaning the line (and the guides) made it shoot a whole lot better. I'm going to clean the rest of my lines tonight just to be sure.

6 comments:

  1. I clean my floating line every time I come back from fishing. Clean, dry, and put new floatant on it. That way, it's always ready for the next time.

    Mark

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    Replies
    1. The next thing you're going to tell me is that your fly tying desk is neat. :)

      It's one of those things that takes no time at all that no one (except you) ever does. I'm a believer.

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  2. How much would you charge to clean 30 lines? I hate it, but have 30 lines on 30 different reels. I think I need to slim down.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'll have to dig up the number for the Colorado chapter of Fly Lines Anonymous for you.

      "Hi, my name is Howard and I have too many fly lines...."

      Delete
  3. Life's too short to be clean too often.

    Yes, I know: That is Culvert.

    ReplyDelete