Cleaning a fly line

[Mister Bill]

Orvis' Tom Rosenbauer says just wash the line with a little dish washing soap, rinse, dry, and put away without any dressing.

I have always applied something commercial.

What is your routine, or do you even clean your fly line?

[driftless angler]

I just do what Tom recommends. It is easy enough to do that I should do it throughout the year, but I just do it once at the end of the season.

[ibookje]

I just clean with a paper towel that’s moist with handwarm water. But I clean the line after a day of fishing so the dirt can’t dry up on the line.

And I do apply a light coat of line conditioner afterwards

[Hellmtflies]

As always, I use AamorAll. Soak a clean rag then run the line through it a few times until it comes through clean. Then let it dry and reel it up. I do this to my regularly used lines two or three times each year. I've been doing this for years and never had a problem. The lines are just plastic. Some of my lines are ten or more years old and still working just fine. Great stuff!

[ffftroutbum]

I just use one of those Rio Magic Cloths or a wet paper towel. I fish a lot on weedy rivers so I usually do it every few outings. I don’t use line dressings vary often any more. But for on my Masterlines I will use PermaPlas (no longer available) which is a replasticzer or was sold as one. I usually let it sit for 24 hours and wiped it off once a year.

[GrsdLnr]

Back when I was fortunate enough to regularly fish a certain spring creek (the one Bohemian Bob lives on) upon returning home I would fill a sink with cool water and a few drops of dishwashing soap (not detergent) and strip the line off the reel into the water to soak for 20 minutes or so. Then rinse the line with clean water and reel it back up through a soft cloth. Dress it with any good commercial product every four or five times. The highly alkaline spring creek water was no friend of fly line coatings, and the weedy scum buildup would quickly turn a floating line into an intermediate.

Now that my all too infrequent fishing trips usually involve freestone mountain creeks at the end of the trip I use a commercial cleaner/dressing as per the mfr's directions.

[barebo]

I use the Cortland line cleaner in the vintage tins and clean my line every time after a day on the stream. I use the felt pad and a tiny amount of cleaner and run the line through and back for the first 30' and then use a clean soft rag to wipe down and back and the amount of crud is ever present. You can see the streaks in the rag so it's not my imagination.
Our streams are typical freestone and I believe fairly clean. It doesn't matter what water I fish as the results are the same. Lines get dirty.

[GerardH]

I fill my double-sink basins with warm -- not hot -- water and strip all 90' of line to soak in one of the sinks. Then I take an old dishcloth -- the kind of rough sewn type -- and apply Softsoap and scrub the line and feed it into the other sink basin. I repeat the process 2 or 3 times before I rinse the soap off the line with clean water and a second dishcloth. Then I take the reel outside and hang the line and stretch it between my dog kennels and a another object (an old wardrobe rod assembly) roughly 100 ft apart and apply Cortland line dressing the length of the line, but especially concentrating on the first 40-50 feet. I do this a couple times a season and a final time before putting away the reels for winter storage. I have several reels that I rotate through during the season, so this can take about an hour or so in total. I also have an old Orvis line cleaning kit that had an abrasive pad similar to Scotch Brite pads that I use once in a while to really work on stubborn build-up.

Casting performance aside, I've seen grooves worn in tip-top guides; so I know how abrasive dirt that accumulates on the line can be.

[Webfly]

I do exactly what Rosenbauer says after every trip, including one dayer's. On week long trips with friends, we actually all do them together one evening in the middle of the week with a cigar and libations. I don't care how clean the water is, the lines still get dirty, especially if any algae or moss is involved and it effects the performance of the line. I like my line to shoot and float...

[ffftroutbum]

It personally sounds like a bit much to me. A wet paper towel or magic cloth works pretty darn good, and it can be done in less time than to even fill up the sink. I have gotten pretty good results with this with some pretty heavy use.

[henkverhaar]

Orvis' Tom Rosenbauer says just wash the line with a little dish washing soap, rinse, dry, and put away without any dressing.

I have always applied something commercial.

What is your routine, or do you even clean your fly line?

For cleaning - yeah, liquid (manual) dishwashing detergent will do just fine. Having said that, it's been a while since I last cleaned a line. As for dressing - my own floatant paste - although I concocted that mainly for silk lines and (thread) furled leaders - but every once in a great while I'll put it on plastic lines as well - if for nothing else, dressing a line with 'grease' will also clean it...

[Gunpowder]

I haven’t cleaned any lines in a long time, since i don’t get out much unfortunately. But when I went a lot and my lines needed cleaning, I’d use a damp towel and then run them through with some Glide on a damp soft cloth. Then the pads to buff it some. Seemed to work well.

[DrLogik]

I also clean my lines with Dawn, in the kitchen sink with a soft sponge and towel on the floor. I pass the line through my hands three times then rinse really well and let it dry. It's important to get all of the residual Dawn off the line since it is a surfactant and attracts water. Meaning, it may not float as well or high on the surface. I dress the line with whatever the manufacturer recommends. Lines last a long time for me and I've been doing it this for better than 30 years.

[DireWolf53]

For years simply washed my lines in warm water and a drop or two of dawn and dried them with a cotton dish towel. Lastly I ran them through a folded paper towel with a bit of Albolene cream. I'm always amazed that there is still a bit of grime after washing the lines. I repeat running them through the towels until they leave no residue. Lately I've started using Klasse vinyl cleaner which also works well to get the last bit of grime off the lines and keeps them lubricated without attracting dirt.

[tiptop]

I strip off 30-40 ft of line and run it through the felt pad with green tin Mucilin. Then run the line through a clean paper towel twice to remove all the Mucilin. The paper towel will show dark streaks of dirt carried off by the Mucilin and leave a micro coating which acts as a dressing/floatant. No drying necessary and it takes about 3-4 minutes per reel. Twenty years ago I began doing this on-stream to the end of the fly line when the tip started to sink and still do. I have lines that have been treated this way for years without any degradation that I can detect. I suspect the result is similar to Hellmtflies use of ArmorAll.

[Silver Doctor]

I also wash in the sink with dishwasher liquid. I always add a coating of Otter butter and polish it off. It makes the line float high again.

[Bob G]

Lots of great information here. For over 40 years I used the kitchen sink and light amount of dish soap method and with no follow-up treatment. In the past couple of years I have totally left the sink method behind, and I have exlusively used either a moistened Wonder Cloth or (rarely) Rio's Cleaning Towelette with no drop off in my lines' performance. Full disclosure, I still feel a tad guilty not using the sink method, but this guilt goes away quickly with the ease of the Wonder Cloth.
Good Luck! Bob

[Caneghost]

PVC lines are generally rubbed with the woven side of an old piece of tee shirt, then treated with Glide or SA dressing, either with a final buffing. Copolymer lines like my Airflos get the soap & water a few times a season and I have used The Silver Trout's USL Agent after drying and also as a daily treatment. I try to clean my lines after each use. The difference in performance is noticeable when lines are not cleaned daily.

[drifly]

I too use to use Armor-all but years ago had well known guide and accomplished caster on the Bighorn tell me to stop as it softens the fly line resulting in some line drag thru the guides. Now it’s just a pad to clean then apply sparingly some glide type product.

[BGreer]

Warm water with a Rio Wonder Cloth to clean dirt/grime from the line and then run it through some Otter Butter on a chamois.

Brian