Line Hacking

“SNICK!” I felt—more than heard—the sound, as the tension on my fly line suddenly gave way, sending it rebounding in puddles through my guides and nearly toppling me over in my boat.  The striped bass I had been fighting thrashed once in the pool, then submerged and was gone, taking fly and leader with it.  My line had failed not on the terminal knots, but instead on the line-to-leader connection.  It turns out your standard trout stream nail knot is not really strong enough to handle stripers, at least not for long.

That was when I started trying to find a better way to rig my terminal tackle.  I had been nail-knotting Amnesia monofilament onto my lines for years, always to serve as a short leader butt and always with a perfection loop tied in so I could switch leaders easily with a loop-to-loop knot.  That system works well, unless you’re fighting big fish or you try to reel the knot in the tip top guide (an error lots of new anglers make, and no doubt a sore subject for many a drift boat guide mailing yet another broken rod back to the factory). Nail knots fundamentally work by clamping onto the coating of the line, and if that coating slips, so will the knot.

Fly line manufacturers went a long way towards alleviating these issues when they began releasing “welded” loops on lines a few years ago.  Made in the factory, these loops rely on a welded bond between the PVC coating (the material in the “jacket” of most lines, in industry parlance).  This loop is especially resilient because PVC can stretch.  In fact, according to sources inside the industry’s fly line testing labs, welded loops are almost always stronger than the core break strength of the line itself.

The only problem with welded loops is that they can wear out.  A leader looped into the system will eventually cut through the coating, causing a hinge effect and necessitating a return to the nail knot, once the worn-out loop is cut away.  Manufacturers have also largely stopped including welded loops on the backs of lines for cost reasons.  Conventional wisdom says welded loops must be made at the factory.  Conventional wisdom is wrong.  In fact, with a few simple techniques, you can not only make your own welded loops, but even create whole fly lines.

Welding School

Working on a tip from an industry insider, I procured a standard ladies’ flat iron (fifteen bucks at a discount store), originally designed for straightening hair.  These irons, which have a temperature setting in the mid-400 degrees Fahrenheit, turn out to be the perfect tools for heating and pressing welded loops into fly line without burning or scorching the PVC.

The procedure is extremely simple: cut the square tip off the line on a sharp bias, making a long point, which will make the coating lie down better once it is welded.  Double your line over, typically leaving about a one-eighth to one-quarter-inch long loop, and giving yourself at least an inch of line to fuse together.  Pre-heat your iron.  Place your loop in something to hold it (I find a plastic wallboard anchor to be perfect), then gently heat and tap the tag into the running line using your iron.  The heat will liquefy the coating so that it has a gel-like consistency.  I find it to be easiest to press the line together tightly with my fingers while it is soft, then let it cool.  Once it is rigid again, use the flat iron to smooth and shape the coating, repeating the process as necessary to make a smooth round bond.

Our manufacturing sources have cautioned that fly lines do not carry a warranty except against manufacturing defects, and while loops are a nice feature to have, they do not affect the performance of the line.  Obviously, welding ones’ own loops carries some risk (you want to be sure you don’t accidentally nick the body of the line with the iron while it is hot, or you’ll create a weak spot).  Of course if you’ve already worn out one loop, you have nothing to lose by making another.  If you fail, you can always go back to the nail knot.

I found the technique to be surprisingly easy.  By my third attempt I was ready to strength-test the system.  I expected it to be somewhat weaker than a factory loop, but that wasn’t actually the case.  Using five weight fly line with a rated core break strength of twenty pounds, I was able to apply more than twenty pounds of pressure to the line three times before the weld finally failed. [Check out the video at flyrodreel.com. – Ed.]  On one test, the line itself broke before the weld.  (Notably, twenty pounds is far more pull force than any trout will ever put on a five weight line—even tarpon anglers typically only set around twelve pounds of drag.  It’s also a lot stronger than any trout tippet one might reasonably use).  Moreover, my tests were with only a three-quarter inch weld; the longer you make the weld, the less likely it will be to fail.  However, for cosmetic reasons you would want to keep the weld within reason, at least until you get good at the technique.

Some caveats are in order.  Welded loops do not appear to be possible with monocore or sinking lines, at least not at home.  With monocore lines, the core is made of monofilament, which warps and coils when one applies heat from the iron.  Sinking lines, meanwhile, simply do not seem to have a thick enough “jacket” to provide you with enough material to make a strong bond.  On the other hand, the heavier one goes with floating fly lines—for example eight or ten weight lines—the stronger the welds get.

Our manufacturing sources also suggested reinforcing the welds with heat-shrink tubing if desired, especially for heavy-duty applications—like making a shooting head system, or even an entire fly line.

Getting Creative

That’s the beauty of being able to weld fly lines at home—you can make almost anything you want!  Surprisingly, there’s quite a history here.  Jim Vincent is the founder of the RIO Products fly line company. In the 1970s and 1980s, fly lines did not come in the wide variety of tapers we are blessed with today.  “When I first started splicing my own lines,” Vincent recalled, “there were no Spey lines on the market.  Hardy had one long double taper available—that was it.  So, along with a lot of other creative anglers in the Pacific Northwest, I started making my own lines.”

At the time, the only widely-known method for fusing fly line was called the “epoxy splice”.  The technique is fairly straightforward and still works great today: start by cutting two pieces of fly line at the desired place.  Strip the coating from “at least a couple inches” of one of the lines (typically the thinner of the two segments) “then thread that exposed core inside the core of the other piece of line” using a needle.  As you are drawing the line up tight, apply a bead of epoxy so that it is pulled inside the core.  “Don’t use the five minute kind,” Vincent cautions, “it’s too brittle. Instead go with a 24-hour cure epoxy, available from professional supply houses like McMaster-Carr.”  Once the core of one line segment is epoxied securely into the core of the other segment, the connection is almost unbreakable: “I’ve broken lots of lines by getting them hung up in rocks or sunken debris,” Vincent recalls, “but honestly I can not remember breaking one at the joint.”

Using this method, Vincent (working with a friend and respected steelheader named Mike Maxwell) developed the first true “Spey” taper.  “We took a ten weight double taper and spliced an eight foot front taper on to it.  I kept the long belly on it like a double taper, but spliced a piece of thinner running line onto the back so that it would shoot better.”  The result—a kind of extremely aggressive weight forward line similar to a modern distance taper—was soon in enough demand that Vincent decided to found a company to make more lines.

This kind of experimentation continues today.  “I think this is the absolute beauty of fly fishing,” Vincent says. “I always suggest that if a customer comes up with a great design, he or she should contact RIO and tell them about it! Many of our lines are from suggestions by our customers.”

Whether you choose to make a permanent connection using the epoxy splice method, or an interchangeable system using welded loops, there is no real limit to how creative you can get with a few fly line scraps.  (And let’s face it, most of us have any number of old lines sitting in drawers, the rears of which rarely saw the light of day).

One of the rivers I fish most often is characterized by rocky shoals between high banks, almost cliffs in some places, thick with rhododendron and other line-grabbing vegetation.  The area is too tight for most backcasts, but it’s perfect for single-hand spey casting.  The fish there are your standard normal trout as well as shoal bass up to a couple pounds—perfect five-weight targets.  Unfortunately, no one makes a Skagit head system for single-hand Spey casting in a light five weight.  So I decided to make one myself.

Using the back of an old five weight line as a running line, I first welded loops in each end, giving me about sixty feet of skinny, shootable floating line.  Then I took an old eight weight bass bug taper which had sat in a drawer for nearly a decade.  Skagit lines are characterized by very heavy front heads; the mass of the head carries the running line far away even with choppy single-hand Spey or roll casts.  I cut the line thirty feet from the tip, and welded another loop.  Welded loops slide well through guides, but to ensure maximum strength at the “hinge” point, I also used heat-shrink tubing.  I then welded a final loop in the front of the old bass bug taper and voila! I had myself a perfectly serviceable five weight Skagit system.

The proof was in the pudding.  Using my new line, I was able to work my way from rock to rock, making short, controlled roll casts behind each shelf and drop off and picking up both trout and shoal bass left and right.  (Shoalies especially love a topwater fly called Edmonds’ Stealth Bomber).  I had the time of my life.

Almost all of us encounter situations on the river where we wish we had access to just a little bit different line system.  Perhaps you need a short shooting head for hopper-dropper fishing out of a drift boat.  Or maybe you’d like to fuse a thin a running line into a heavy eleven weight head for near-shore striped bass.  Whether you’re repairing a broken welded loop or making a custom shooting head system, or you’d just like to get a little more use out of those old lines sitting in a drawer, the tools you need are as close as your local hair supply shop.  So get creative, come up with something new, and who knows? Maybe your taper will be the next big thing in fly casting.

This article originally ran in the summer 2012 issue of Fly Rod & Reel magazine.