Cleaning and Dressing your Fly Line

Jeff

This photo essay will cover the steps to clean and dress your fly line to ensure optimum performance.

Step 1
I simply put mild dish soap on a damp towel to clean my fly line.
I apply a small amount of mild dish soap to a damp clean towel.

Step 2

Strip the fly line off of your reel.  Be careful to strip it into an area that is clean and safe from feet.  I like to make 3-4 foot strips and thoroughly inspect the fly line as I am going. I look for nicks in the coating and check my knots for signs of weakness.  I make it a habit of re-tying all of my knots once a year, especially the line/leader knot.

Step 3

Strip the fly line through your soapy towel.  I strip the line through twice.  Once from tip to butt and then from butt to tip.
After cleaning with soapy towel, remove soap by stripping fly line under running water.  Again strip form tip to butt then butt to tip.

Step 4

Dry the fly line thoroughly.

Step 5

Apply about a penny size amount of fly line dressing on your applicator pad or clean, dry towel.

Step 6

Strip the fly line through the applicator pad/ line dressing.  Again work from tip to butt and then from butt to tip. This will help to ensure all of the microscopic nicks and dings are filled with line dressing.

Step 7

Allow the line dressing to dry on the fly line for 5-10 minutes.

Step 8

Remove the excess fly line dressing with a clean soft cloth by stripping the line from butt to tip and then tip to butt.  We are then ready to wind the line back onto the reel.
As the season progresses and you notice that your fly line begins to feel sticky or that it just doesn’t shoot right.  When this happens, follow the steps above to restore the performance of the line. Depending on how dirty your streams or ponds are (i.e. grass, moss, pollen, mud) will dictate how often you should clean and dress your fly line.  We use Scientific Anglers Fly Line Dressing or Glide Line Dressing on our personal and school outfits and have been pleased with the results.  If you have any questions, please feel free to email us (info@murraysflyshop.com) or give us a call at 540-984-4212.