Line changing

Wouldn't it be worth the investment by getting an extra spool? You can change on the fly like I do when changing from sink-tip to floating etc with no hassle.

Since that's probably not the answer you were looking for, you might try one of the small lighweight plastic rigs designed for extenstion cords or christmas lights. You can get them at home depot, I think they're called "Cord Keepers" or something like that.

Let 'em go!

Have you ever thought of rolling the line back onto the plastic spool the line came on? That's the only way I've ever done it, and have never had a problem.

Struebel Line Winder. If you use loop to loop connections you can change a line over in about 2 minutes. I've even done it when a sailfish has been circling the boat, and gotten the fly back out and hooked up before it lost interest. A big upside is that the lines are storeable in quart ziplock bags, and you don't get the nasty tight little coiled memory problem after long term storage. $50 bucks, but worth every penny.

I do the same as Philster - I whip finish a loop in all my fly line ends and swap them out as needed via loop to loop connection to the backing- have so far not needed to do it in such a hurry (that must have been some fast job with a fish circling the boat!) and usually just rewind it back on the retail packaging spool. I use a pencil with big fat eraser heads at each end when migrating the line back to the reel - pop one of the erasers off and put the pencil in the spool hole and hold it between your feet.

One thing I did see, but have not tried, is you can put handles on each side of your retail line spool and turn it into a real cheap line winder...offset them from the center by 2" or so.

Jim W

What do I know---I'm just an old man

I know that this won't help you now,but maybe you should have went out and bought one of those mulit tip lines. They come with several sink tips and a floater. I think that is easier to change tips that a whole line. But what do I know I'm just an old man. Jim