This is Genius
Let's talk line management for the fly and the conventional fisherman.
6/15/20262 min read
Used to it by now but still, and especially fly fishing, I don't care for the daily and possibly several times daily, routine of stretching the fly line, and what seems more difficult than necessary the stretching of leader and to a lesser degree, tippet.
Let's talk conventional fishing. One of the top three reasons conventional fishermen may lose interest in the sport, is the line tangles. Monofilament and to a slightly lesser degree, fluorocarbon has memory. Wet, it loses some memory and wet with pressure, it will lose it's memory faster than a politician cornered with facts. I take it for granted so seldom mention it unless teaching advanced fishing, but I soak my spool of line overnight before spooling up. And when spooling a reel there's specific physics to pay attention to, as to how the line is coming off the spool in relation to your reel's rotation. Often before heading out for a fishing day, I'll slip an elastic pony tail holder or two that's been soaked in water at least half an hour, over my spinning reel spool. Get a knot anyway while fishing? I carry a safety pin-that and the hook point of whatever is tied on will get 99% of line knots out. Fail to soak the line a minute or two in the water you're fishing and that drops to less than 50%. Are you seeing a theme?
Back to fly fishing. Stretching your leader is so important there's "leader straighteners" sold by nearly anyone selling especially fly fishing equipment. In some cases, I thought the leader straightener worked better than hand stretching but that may have been quality of the line. The only caution hand stretching a leader is be careful to not line burn your fingers or hands. Either stretch method is using the principle of applying limited heat. A well stretched leader is especially important when fishing dry flies.
Then this guy comes along and shares someone else's idea. The blog picture are two of my four containers just purchased for fly fishing leader at Walmart-mints emptied into other containers. To be used as described in the following video.