S5, Ep 114: Fly Line Essentials with Mac Brown

Marvin Cash: Hey, folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Articulate Fly. We're back with another flyline essentials with Mac Brown. How you doing, Mac?

Mac Brown: I'm doing great. How are you doing, Marvin?

Marvin Cash: As always, I'm just trying to stay out of trouble. And, you know, this time we're going to cover line care and maintenance, and then our next episode is going to be our great Q and A episode.

Mac Brown: That sounds good, Marvin. And on top of that, I hear you got some big offers that have come in this last weekend.

Marvin Cash: What's that, Mac Brown?

Mac Brown: Well, you had a birthday, and I'm wondering how many double AARP offers with the Chinese briefcase, the leather briefcase you've taken up this weekend.

Marvin Cash: You know, the amazing thing is they never found me when I turned 50.

Mac Brown: Oh, that's good. That's good because that's a lot of junk mail.

Marvin Cash: It's probably worse than Publishers Clearinghouse. But, you know, we wanted to kind of break this line care and maintenance thing down into probably three or four pieces. And I think, you know, we were talking about this, Mac, before we started recording about stretching your lines.

If you've had them cranked down in a reel spool somewhere in the car in your gear bag, and you basically want to go fish, you probably want to pull out maybe the first 15 to 20 feet of that line and stretch it out a little bit.

Mac Brown: Yeah, just - a lot of times if I'm in a boat, I'll stretch it out six foot at a time. And if you have the access, like on land, you know, casting or practicing on the field or something, just have somebody pull the other end and stand back and just give it a good tug and hold on to it for a second and help straighten it out.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, pulling it on a trailer hitch works pretty well, too.

Mac Brown: Oh, yeah, yeah. That's a good thing to do just to have it stretched out. And that's a good time, too, once it's stretched out, you know, I think that's an important thing. And equally as important is cleaning it, like every time I pull it out.

Like, we had our casting school this weekend, the two day school, and you know, I had everybody clean it because I'm like, when was the last time you cleaned it? And everybody looks dazed and confused and it's really an important step to clean it, you know, if you're gonna try to talk about shooting line and do all these things, there's just so much dirt.

And even if it's from the water, even if you hadn't touched the grass, or much worse, a parking lot or a gravel driveway, it's pretty hard on flylines. But you're going to get dirt a lot, even on the water. That's where all the film like in the meniscus is where it carries most of the trash in the river, especially when there's pollen and that kind of stuff.

So you'll see a lot of filth come off of it, even using it on the water. So it's good idea. Just take Ivory soap, put it on a rag. That's what I use the most, is just soap lather on there and just pull it through a cloth and pull it through a cloth with a - get rid of that off of it with a little bit of water and just pull it through again. You know, just a piece of paper towel, a cotton cloth, whatever you got available.

A lot of times I use my shirt tail. That's why you see these big black lines when you're teaching. You'll see two big black lines where you pinched it and pulled it through a shirt tail. But it's a good idea to clean it. It's hard to shoot line if there's a bunch of grit sitting on the line.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. And when you say ivory, you're talking about Ivory bar soap, right?

Mac Brown: Yeah, just like Ivory type bar soap.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, because, you know, the harsh stuff. So Scientific Anglers makes a line cleaning liquid you can use too. But, you know, using something like Dawn or something even more caustic than that's really not great for your line because what it generally tends to do is pull the oils out of line. So you want to use a really gentle soap. Right?

Mac Brown: Yeah, just - that's why I like the Ivory. That's what I've used for years, you know, before they came out with all these new impregnating lubricants in there that help leech out over time. I mean, it's just - that's a good, that's a really good way to clean it. Helps stuff get removed, you know, with the soap.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. And if we back up a little bit, you know, too, we kind of talk about, like, that's kind of like when you come home. Right. A couple times a season. Beginning of the season, end of the season. But you know, when you're on the water, at least for me, I usually carry one of those Scientific Anglers abrasive pads with me in a little line dressing.

And if I need a little bit of a tune up, you know, I can pull the line through the cleaning pad. It's got a little bit of abrasion on it. And then, you know, you can take your shirt tail and a little bit of line dressing and pull it through there and you're back in business.

Mac Brown: Oh yeah, no, that's a good idea to do too. Especially like you can tell it, I mean you can tell always when it's not gonna shoot. You can tell when it's dirty is what I'm saying. If you're throwing a line enough, even on a lake like the South Holston River, or over here on the Nantahala River, you can tell instantly once it's dirty because you go to shoot and it shoots, but it's just not shooting like up to par.

And it's just like, yep, time for a cleaning. And that just comes from, I guess, you know, the act of doing it a lot. That the way you can tell instantly when it started because it should go through the eyelets and take off and shoot like butter, you know, going out. So as soon as it feels gritty or like - yeah, that's feeling like the brakes are put on, chances are the line's dirty.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. You can also watch. It'll usually start to sink a little bit in the water.

Mac Brown: Mm hmm. Yeah, sometimes that'll be the case too. It starts to like sink real slowly, especially toward the end. And when it starts doing that business, it's time to give a little cleaning.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. And we were talking too about storing and you know, sometimes people have extra spools and that's great. But you know, one thing I do, particularly when I don't have extra spools is I basically pull the entire flyline off, and then basically put it in a really loose, like probably, I don't know, two foot plus loops and just hang it around the neck of a coat hanger in my closet.

Mac Brown: Yeah. To hang it up on like pegs or - that kind of reminds me of the old, those stories from River Tron when they'd have to take all those silk lines and hang them up on the pegboards in the barn. And that's where the, you know, where Gebet-sroither came up with his Belgian cast. That's how they did that back then when they'd hang all those lines up every day when people were done, so then they'd redress them, then put them back on the reels for the next day.

But every day that was, that was the method for line maintenance back at that time period. And I think that's a good idea, you know, to keep it from being tightly coiled up on a reel. That's a real good thing, a good habit to do, for sure.

Marvin Cash: And then we were also saying too, you know, really not a great idea to leave flylines in hot cars, in places like that because, you know, waders and flylines are two things that the heat will absolutely wreck.

Mac Brown: Oh, yeah. And especially these days with all the, you know, we had vault rod, vault type apparatuses here back in the mid-80s. That's what really kind of started it. We would have them on the boats, we had them on the cars. And then you started to see everybody making all these vaults for vehicles. And that was like 30 years later. But I mean, there's a lot of different companies that are doing it.

But that's probably one of the best ways to ruin a line. I mean, if you really want to think about - yeah, just drive around, look cool with it on your car and let your lines cook for a week and then go to the river on the weekend. Because I see those in the cities everywhere, like Asheville. You see it on all kinds of cars. And it's just, I think it's one of the best ways to not have longevity in your line is let it cook up there in that rod vault.

Because most people leave them in there. They don't take them in and out. They don't go to the river and then pull them out. They just leave them there all the time. And definitely that's a great way to destroy your line, you know?

Marvin Cash: Yeah, for sure. And, you know, you were talking about this too. I mean, the amazing thing is, you know, if you really take care of your lines, which means, you know, don't cast them on asphalt. Like if you're doing casting demos in a parking lot, have demo lines. Right. But if you take care of them and clean them, don't leave them in cars, I mean, you can get a lot of days of use out of a flyline.

Mac Brown: Oh, yeah, yeah, that's a good point. There's a Mastery series - what I used this weekend was that 7-weight Mastery Series, Expert Distance. And that line has been there since 2007 and it's no cracks. It works just as good as the day it was new. 2007, the Trout Amplitude rod, they wanted to see. I use a Whitlock connection a lot with these different flylines where you basically cut the mono and insert it into the flyline.

So the people wanted to see that. So I brought out some 2-weight and 3-weight lines and those go back into the like 2005. So they're 20 years old and they're still just as good as the day I put them on. So if you're buying quality lines, which, you know, there is a lot of science, to be honest, with the UV inhibitors and all this, I mean, a lot of people think that's a gimmick.

That's definitely not a gimmick. When you have the knowledge of all those chemical engineers from 3M and they want to make a UV inhibitor to make something last. I think they did their homework really well because, I mean, you get what you pay for. It's like a lot of those lines cost similar, but a lot of other brands don't have the UV inhibitors and you'll see them last for three or four seasons and they're ready to be replaced.

Well, you paid the same money, so why don't you get one that lasts 20, 30 years for the same money? It's just good science, you know.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, it's a great place for us to give a shout out to our friends at Scientific Anglers for sponsoring the series. And you know, folks, we are in the home stretch. The next episode in two weeks is going to be our Q and A episode. So if you've got any questions for Mac on flylines, you need to get them in.

And remember, this is how it works. Send them in, you can email them to us, you can DM us on social media, whatever's easiest for you. And if you send in a question, we're entering a drawing for a signed copy of Mac's book Casting Angles. And then Mac and I are going to pick the questions we want to talk about in the Q and A episode. And if we select one of those questions out of that pool, we're going to draw and you're going to get your choice of some Scientific Anglers lines.

So great opportunity to pick up some great lines that are, if you take care of them, will last a really long time. Right, Mac Brown?

Mac Brown: That's right. And I appreciate you having us on again, Marvin. The top flylines and want to wish you a happy birthday too before we run.

Marvin Cash: Oh, well, I appreciate that. And you know, folks, I think we may have turned the corner on the hot weather here in the Southeast. And, you know, if we can get a little bit of rain, I'm seeing the stream temperatures come down where they need to be. If we get a little bit more water, I think we're going to be in great shape for fall trout season. You owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a few. Tight lines, everybody. Tight lines, Mac.

Mac Brown: Tight lines, Marvin.