How to Care for Your Fly Line (16 of 39)

How do you care for a fly line? Well, it's pretty simple. There isn't much you can do to damage your fly line other than stepping on it or getting a solvent on it. One of the things you wanna be careful of are things like sunscreen, fly spray, and insect repellent because they do have solvents in it and you could possibly damage your fly line. But other than that, you could store a fly line on a reel for years. You don't need to put it anyplace special. You can keep your fly line in a hot car, it's not gonna hurt your fly line at all. You know, if you've left it out in the sun for two years, it might hurt it but as long as you keep it out of direct sunlight. And again, heat, cold doesn't really hurt a fly line. As far as cleaning a fly line, cleaning a fly line will really rejuvenate it. It will make it shoot through your guides better, it will make it float better, make it cast better, and it's really straightforward.
To clean a fly line, all you need to do is strip line off the reel. And usually, you don't have to go all the way to the end of your fly line because you're generally only fishing 40 or 50 feet of line. Strip the line off your reel. Strip it into a bucket or a sink with warm water and a little dish soap, and then just let it sit for a few minutes. And then take the fly line out, rinse it, and run it through a piece of paper towel. Just put some pressure on the line and pull it through that piece of paper towel. And you'll see that there'll be some residue on the paper towel.
Don't put any kind of line dressing on your fly lines. They gunk them up, and they work really well for the first dozen casts, and then they actually attract dirt, and algae, and stuff like that. So, you don't need to put any special treatment on your fly lines. You just need to keep them clean. How often should you clean them? Some people will clean them after every trip. Honestly, I clean mine every couple of months. I'm not as good about cleaning fly lines as I probably should be, but you can clean them as often as you want. But probably every four or five trips if you really want your line in tip-top shape. And if the water is really dirty, you might wanna clean your fly line more often. But that's all you need to do. Fly lines are very, very maintenance-free.
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