kinky

[salt dog]

...fly line, that is, and wondering what to do about it.

Pre-dawn found me sitting on a frost covered log on the moonlit beach, watching the first light chase away the stars, waiting for enough light to fish. Pretty nice, and well worth the effort to be there.

Anyway, I usually fish a 6 wt rod on the beach with a Rio Versa-tip line, but I wanted to use my 4 wt rod, loaded with FF 5 wt SA floating line, which I usually use on rivers. Dang, line is all pig tailed. I repeatedly stretch it and try to un-kink it, but not much luck. This summer/fall this was a good line for laying out long casts with small dries to sipping fish on the Yakima, but the cold made it semi-useable, at best; I eventually got the first 50' functional. I've never had this problem on my 6wt Rio line, even with ice in the guides, but that is also on a large arbor spool reel, and this is on a small spool reel.

Have any of you experienced the same thing? What lines do any of you folks use when it is cold, say 29F, or lower. I think I need new 5 wt line.

[marcopolo]

I have a Rio Outbound that was behaving the same way yesterday in the South Sound. My fingers were too cold to try to work the loops out of that line. Not tho mention the resulting bird nests.

[salt dog]

Marco, that's exactly some of the problem I ran into: numb fingers are not only bad for untangling line, also useless to play line out on a running fish!
Maybe this is mother Nature's way of saying fly fishermen should migrate to tropical waters this time of year!

[Walt K]

I use an SA intermediate monocore line ("striper taper"?) for cold-weather fishing on the Chesapeake; don't know if it comes in a 5wt, though.

[chadk]

Marco - how do you like that line when the temps are above freezing?

[salt dog]

Hi Walt, thanks for the response.
I looked on SA's website: the SA line you are using, is that the INTERMEDIATE SINKING SHOOTING LINE, or is it one of the 'Mastery Series' lines?

[Walt K]

Jim, I believe it's the Mastery line.


[Edit: it's definitely the " Mastery Striper Taper Lines CLEAR INTERMEDIATE Cold Weather"; looks like it may have been discontinued a couple of years ago per this link: http://shop.flyfishing.about.com/classifieds/16/details/8436.htm ]

[Jay Reifel]

I had originally tried keeping my reel close to the heater vent at home, then keeping it close to the heat source in the car while putting on waders, boots, etc. But it would cool off so quickly that there wasn't that much benefit by the time I hit the water.
Instead, I've rigged the rod, including a fly, in advance and warmed the reel at home. Still at home, I strip off about 50-60 feet into my stripping basket, stretching it as I go. I keep it in the stripping basket by the heater in the car and as soon as arrive at parking area I hook the fly to a fence or post and stretch out all 50 or 60 feet. It helps to have a tippet of 8#'s or more to be able to apply more pressure. I strip it back into the basket in large loops. It firms up immediately once it hits the cold water but I don't have the tight little coils that always seem to hang up at the worst times. Works for me.
Hooking a nice line-ripping chum on your first cast will also yield the same benefit!

[marcopolo]

Chadk, The Outbound is a pretty good shooting head in my view. The only thing that I don't like is that it gets "sticky" when wet. I mean that wet loops in your basket have a tendency to stick to each other resulting in a nasty bird nest when shooting the line. I would recommend it anyways.

[Zen Piscator]

The reason for the kinks is the mono core used in the line. For cold weather fishing I would recomend a dacron core instead of mono, as dacron does not have memory.

Peace,
Andy

[salt dog]

Thanks Zen, I hadn't tought of that!