Looking after fly tackle

A trout outfit has one component that degrades meaningfully with use, one that degrades with neglect, and several that essentially do not degrade at all. Knowing which is which redirects almost all the effort people put into looking after tackle, because the conventional distribution of worry is close to the reverse of the useful one.

The fly line is the part that wears. It is a plastic coating over a braided core, it picks up grit, sunscreen, algae and fine silt every time it is fished, and the coating hardens with ultraviolet light and heat. A line that has stopped floating and started sinking at the tip has almost never failed: it is dirty. A line with fine cracks across the coating has been left in the sun or in a car, and that one is finished.

The leader and tippet are consumables and should be treated as such. Nylon degrades with ultraviolet light and with age whether it is fished or not, and a spool that has lived on a car parcel shelf for two summers is not the breaking strain written on it. This is the cheapest thing on the whole outfit and the one most likely to lose a fish.

The reel is where the worry goes and where it is least warranted. On a trout outfit the reel is largely a line holder; there is very little load on it and the failure modes are salt corrosion and grit in the drag, neither of which affects most freshwater fishing. The rod does not wear out at all in normal use. It breaks, usually in a car door or a doorway rather than on a fish.

The thing that actually wears

The fly line

What ruins a line fastest

Heat and sunlight

What breaks a rod

Car doors, not fish

Cheapest thing that loses fish

Old tippet

A floating line floats because its coating is less dense than water, and it stops floating when that coating is covered in things that are not. Dirt is the first and most common cause of a line that has begun to sink, and it is entirely reversible.

Cleaning a line, which takes about ten minutes a season for most people:

1. 1

   Step 1: Strip the line off into a bowl of warm water

   Warm rather than hot, with a small amount of mild washing-up liquid. Nothing solvent-based, nothing abrasive, and nothing sold for cleaning anything other than fly line — the coating is soft plastic and it is easy to damage permanently.

   You will know it worked when: The line is off the reel and soaking rather than coiled.

2. 2

   Step 2: Draw it through a soft cloth, twice

   A folded microfibre or an old cotton cloth, gently, along the whole length. The first pass will come away visibly grey. The second tells you whether you are finished.

   You will know it worked when: A cloth that stays clean on the second pass.

3. 3

   Step 3: Dry it, then dress it if the manufacturer says to

   Line dressings are specific to the coating and some modern lines are explicitly not to be dressed. Check what the maker says about the line you own rather than applying what worked on a line you used to own.

   You will know it worked when: A line that floats the way it did when it was new.

4. 4

   Step 4: Reel it back on without tension

   Stored under tension a line takes a memory of the spool, which shows up as coils that will not straighten on the water. Wind it on loosely.

   You will know it worked when: Line that lies straight on the first cast of the next trip.

What actually kills a line, in order:

• A hot car — The single most destructive thing that happens to fly tackle in Britain, and it happens in a car park rather than on the water. Heat and ultraviolet together harden the coating until it cracks, and no cleaning recovers it.
• Sunscreen and insect repellent — DEET in particular attacks the coating and the plastic on rod fittings. Handle the line before you apply it, or wash your hands after.
• Standing on it — On gravel or a boat deck this drives grit into the coating, which is the one form of dirt that does not wash out.
• Being put away wet on the reel for months — Less damaging to the line than to everything around it, but it is how backing rots and how a reel seat corrodes.

Nylon monofilament weakens with ultraviolet exposure and with time. It also takes a set from being coiled on a spool, and it is weakened locally by every wind knot and every abrasion against a stone. None of that is visible, which is why people fish it far longer than they should.

The practical rule is that tippet is a consumable measured in seasons rather than in years, that it should be stored out of the light, and that any suspicion about a length is settled by replacing it rather than by testing it. Fluorocarbon is more resistant to ultraviolet and no more resistant to abrasion, which is the failure that actually loses fish.

Change tippet after a fish of any size, after any wind knot, and whenever you have been dragging a fly over stones. A wind knot is an overhand knot in the leader and it costs a substantial part of the breaking strain — the honest response is to cut it out rather than to pick at it.

• The reel — Freshwater: rinse occasionally, keep grit out of the drag, and do not pack it away wet. Sealed drags are not to be opened. Saltwater is a different regime entirely — rinse every single time, with fresh water, including the backing.
• The rod — Wipe the ferrules and push the sections fully home each time you assemble it. Most rod breakages are a loose ferrule working itself apart mid-cast, or a car door. Store it in its tube if it is going anywhere.
• The cork handle — Goes grey with hand grime and is best left alone. Aggressive cleaning takes the filler out of the cork and leaves pits that then fill with dirt faster.
• Waders — Breathable waders fail at the seams and at the crease where they are folded. Hang them full-length rather than folding them, dry them inside as well as out, and accept that a season of hard use will find a pinhole. They are repairable, and the repair kit is cheap.
• Wading boots — The item to clean for reasons that are nothing to do with the boots. Felt soles in particular carry water between catchments, and cleaning and drying them between waters is a biosecurity habit rather than a maintenance one.
• The net — A knotless net that has been left wet grows a coating that is unpleasant for fish. Rinse and dry it, which takes no time and is part of handling fish decently.

1. 1

   Step 1: Clean the line and reel it on loose

   As above. Doing it at the end of the season rather than the start means the line is ready when the weather is, which is when nobody wants to be doing maintenance.

   You will know it worked when: A line that will float in April.

2. 2

   Step 2: Strip the old tippet and leaders off

   Bin them rather than storing them. A spool of two-year-old nylon is worth less than the fish it will lose you, and old nylon left anywhere outdoors is a genuine hazard to wildlife.

   You will know it worked when: Fresh consumables next season, and nothing left on a bank.

3. 3

   Step 3: Dry everything properly, indoors and slowly

   Waders inside out, boots open, nets hung. Not on a radiator — heat is as bad for breathable membranes as it is for fly line.

   You will know it worked when: Nothing stored damp.

4. 4

   Step 4: Open the fly boxes

   A hook that went away wet rusts, and a rusted hook in a foam box marks the flies either side of it. This is five minutes and it saves a box.

   You will know it worked when: Flies that are still there next year.

5. 5

   Step 5: Check the rod and the reel seat

   Ferrules clean, seat threads free of grit, guides free of grooves. A grooved guide cuts line and is the one rod fault worth finding before the first trip rather than during it.

   You will know it worked when: Tackle you can pick up and use.