Halloween Fly Line Maintenance 01Nov11

'Tis the season to do some fly line maintenance. My 4wt and 5wt line tips were sinking and I noticed "cracks" in the first 25 ft of lines where I handle them most. Rather than jumping directly to replacement as I've often done in the past, I chose to run a maintenance pass to see if I can get some more time on them. I prefer SA Mastery MPX these days in WF-F. It's a very good general purpose line for nymphing and decent enough for dries and is not over the top expensive @ ~$80 retail. To clean and restore this line I got an SA line dressing and cleaning pad for ~$6 at Sportsman's Warehouse. The cleaning pad actually roughs up the surface some and the flip side allows you to apply the dressing. I chose to only do the first 8 yards of line. I first used lightly soapy water (soaked and agitated the lines, then rinsed). Next I used a clean cloth to get any remaining grime off the line. I moved then to run the recommended SA maintenance... I pulled the lines through the rough side of the pad a couple times and more gunk came off. Then I applied a blotch of the dressing to the sponge side and dragged the lines through it a couple times. TaaDaa... "refurbished" lines. They look and feel decent but we'll see on performance. The whole process can be achieved with aid of La Cumbre's stellar seasonal experimental Project Dank IPA.