Are fly fishing companies price gouging on backing
- This topic has 18 replies, 10 voices, and was last updated Jul 29, 2011 at 2:17 pm by
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I’m not sure. Before I became interested in fly fishing I flew kites. One of the things that anglers and kite flyers have in common is a fairly intimate knowlege of various types of line. I was a bit more obsessed about various line types because I owned a business that made custom wood reels for holding kite line. I catered to equally obsessed guys that went to kite competitions and demanded serious performance from their equipment.
This is just some of that Free Market Capitalism, by low sell high thing. For the price of one bottle of dry shake I can purchase 250 times the contents directly from the manufacturer. If you identify and eliminate the middle man profit from most any goods they will be a lot cheaper. But be prepared to buy in quantity, sometimes a truck load.
Roy
As they say, there is an “@ss for every seat” or a “sucker born every minute.”
I would agree with Roy, it isn’t necessarily gouging.
Dave,
What is dry shake actually containing? ..
EricEric, it’s fumed silica epoxy. Mostly used as a thickener for marine use adhesives etc. $6 buys you a lifetime supply. I bought mine six or so yrs ago and haven’t made a dent. Link:
Dave,
What is dry shake actually containing? ..
EricEric, it’s fumed silica epoxy. Mostly used as a thickener for marine use adhesives etc. $6 buys you a lifetime supply. I bought mine six or so yrs ago and haven’t made a dent. Link:
Technically it is not epoxy.
It is fumed silica, indeed.
Dave,
What is dry shake actually containing? ..
EricEric, it’s fumed silica epoxy. Mostly used as a thickener for marine use adhesives etc. $6 buys you a lifetime supply. I bought mine six or so yrs ago and haven’t made a dent. Link:
technically it is not epoxy.
It is fumed silica.
Ah, thanks Dave!
Either way, it comes in a plastic bag so the hard part is getting the stuff out of the bag and into a jar without turning your house into a Superfund site…lol.
Sorry for the hijack fellas..
Hey Zach- I intend to find out for you guys. I know the dyneema (gel spun) can be purchased inl small quantities or in bulk at a comparably low cost. As for color fastness, I have had dyneema that is colorfast, and some that isn’t. It depended on the manufacturer. Dyneema does come in pound test break strengths. That means a system we are all aquainted with. – Let me be the guinea pig and order some of this stuff and get back to you all once I have seen it in person. – I’ve seen a lot of this type of line over the years, but for kites, I was buying it from 20 lb up to 300 lb test. I have some kites that are larger than school buses. I don’t think anyone will be needing 300 lb backing any time soon.
The real question for me is about the hand or feel of the braid. I want to be certain that the braiding is done the same way other fly line backing is braided. I don’t want a 4 line braid fishing line that is abrasive like spider wire fishing line. I want the soft stuff that won’t dig into an expensive reel. Maybe an 8 strand braided gel spun.
That’s Bionic Braid, Zach. Too expensive for me – I use FINS or Platil braid in 30 or 50lb. I just bought 300m of Platil braid for AUD$25 bucks which I thought was a pretty fair price. I’m not sure of the number of strands but I’ve been using it for years. 300m of Bionic braid is AUD$99 😮 which I think is ludicrous, despite being a good product.
Best Regards,
Beechy
I would mostly want a source because I swap lines around a lot and some lines (Spey lines especially) will eat the majority of the space on a reel, but I always hate cutting the backing because I know when I go back to a narrow sinking line later I’ll have a ton of space.
Zach
WHile it isn’t the most costly part of your rig, if you use gel spun backing, you may have wondered why the line is so expensive.
The reality is that is shouldn’t be.Yeah? Compare the cost of a small pair of fingernail clippers at K-mart with the Orvis line nippers you can buy at the fly fishing shop. Fly fishermen are suckers. 🙂
We can only comfort ourselves by laughing at the outrageous prices that women are paying for our hackle feathers.
bd
I’ve got my kite string connections searching for a wholesaler of the orange gel spun 8 strand braid #20 and #30. He already located a black colored line and white also at an inexpensive rate. Think more like 6 bucks for around 1000 yards.
There are 4 strand variations that are fishing line that are inexpensive, but the line tends toward the lack of colorfastness. Eventually the color will wash out of the line. That also tells me that it could very likely stain fly line and our fingers. I’m avoiding this stuff at all costs.
There may be a good reason that the gel spun we see is expensive after all. Where you buy the stuff is a trade secret. I can not confirm that the line I am looking at on the web is the same stuff until I have samples in hand for inspection.
The good news is that I organized my fly tying area today. Now I can’t find anything.
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