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Floating fly line not floating

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Hi everbody.

I have been fly fishing for about a week and my floating fly line is sinking. Should I cut or just put new fly line on. I'm not sure if its the whole thing though.

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Might want to also check for a cut that's allowing water to wick into the core or seal the tip of the line if the core is exposed as in a line without a welded loop.

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A floating line that doesn't float has been a pet peeve of mine for a long time. As Silvercreek has said, clean your line and treat it. And as McGnat has said, it's possible that the tip of your flyline is nicked and water is being absorbed into your flyline. One other thing to try if you are using a leader with a butt section is to grease the butt section with a paste-type floatant. Greasing the butt will help keep it afloat and reduce the downward pull of the leader on the flyline; this will help keep the tip from getting water-logged. Try to remember to do this before your first cast and repeat the treatment during the day.

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If just the tip of a floating fly line is sinking & pulling down more of the line, squarely cut a few inches off from the end & put a drop of Zap-A-Gap to seal it from water intrusion. Cleaning a fly line in Ivory bath soap & rinsing off before fly line conditioner should help too.

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I always thought that water migrated into the end of a fly line until I met Leon Chandler, who spent 51 at Cortland Line Company and retired as Vice President. I met him on the Missouri River at Craig. He was spending an entire summer there in his camper, fishing from a personal watercraft.



I asked him about the water migrating into a fly line and he told me that Cortland did experiments, submerging fly line in water and found that there was very minimal water at the very end of the fly line core. It cannot sink the fly line.



I gave this some thought and concluded that for water to enter the core of a fly line it has to displace the air in the spaces between material comprising the woven core. Where does that air go? It cannot go escape since any water in the core would act as a plug keeping the air from leaking out. The air must stay in the core so any a small amount of water enters, the remaining air in the core keeps additional water from entering.



Can't the air migrate to the other end of the fly line attached to the backing and leak out? I suspect the knot tying the backing to the fly line compressed the fly line including the core prevents his. Plus for air to migrate, the water must be under some pressure to push the air through 90 feet of fly line, which it is not.



Secondly, for something entering the core of a fly line to cause it to sink, it must have a specific gravity greater than water. It must be heavier than water. Since water cannot be heavier than water, water cannot make floating fly line sink in water! Since the water does displaces a bit of air, it can make the fly line FLOAT LOWER but cannot sink the line.



Dirt and grime on the fly line coating makes it sink.



When a fly line develops cracks, the water does get into the core and since there are many cracks, the air can escape and be replaced by water. But in a fly line with no cracks, the air in the woven core prevents water from entering.



When the tip of a fly line starts to sink, it is not water in the fly line, it is dirt and loss of the hydrophobic coating.



”In normal use, even on clean water, microscopic particles of dirt and debris will adhere to the surface of a floating line, adding weight that may eventually overcome the natural buoyancy built into the line itself. Because it contains a thinner coating of the buoyant finishing material than does the larger diameter body, the tip section of a tapered line will begin sinking first - an indication that it should be cleaned.”



http://flyanglersonline.com/begin/101/linecare.php


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Just speculating, but would the act of casting or playing fish change the dynamic? I can imagine the stretching of the braided core displacing air and drawing in water when the core relaxes. While the water would not sink the line it would partially offset the benefits of a clean and treated line.

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That is something I didn't think of. Casting probably woould not do anything. But a fly line under varying tension under water as a fish fights - could that "suck" in some water? I don't know.

 

Anatomy of a fly line.

 

As a fly line tapers, the core and the coating remain the same thickness. The floatation material gets thinner and the average specific gravity of the line increases. So the tips of fly lines are floating lines first sink.

 

Years ago some manufacturers tried to "density compensate" floating lines by adding more micro-balloons to the tip of the fly line to compensate for the thinner floatation layer so the specific gravity does not go up. Apparently that did not work because it is no longer advertised.

anatomy.gif

Scanning electron micrograph of a floating fly line showing the hollow glass micro-bubbles.

Unknown_zps41b7c9ba.jpeg

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what would that amount of water weigh?

 

if the tip of my fly line dips below the surface i just keep fishing. not much can be done about it and it wont spoil a good days fishing

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Clean it and treat it and it should float just fine. Dirt adds weight and soaks up water. The reason fly lines sink at the tip is because there are fewer flotation bubbles in the end of the line because of the smaller tip, plus the leader knot connection is there, which adds weight.

 

I acknowledge the research of the guy from Cortland about water not wicking into a fly line. Don't see how it could through the core.

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capillary action might account for some of the water that gets into the fly line core.... no?

 

Capilary action works because the top of the tube is open, so there is NO pressure from any compressed air that is dsplaced by the water. Plug the tube at the top and water cannot move up the tube. Then both gravity and the force of compressed air opposes the capillary action.

 

Boyle's Law state that as a gas is compressed the pressure of the gas (air) in the closed space increases. Since capilarry action is due to hydrogen bonding beween water molecules (basically the force of surface tension) and adhesion of water to the material of the it cannot overcome the countering force of thhe compressed air opposing it. The force of compressed air opposes the adhesion of water to other water molecules and to the material.

 

"pressure of a gas is inversely proportional to the volume occupied by it"

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boyle%27s_law

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_bond

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capillary_action

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If you tie a nail knot on the end of the fly line, you compress it and I don't think water can enter at all. Like SC said, you're blocking the end of the tube. I've seen the tip sink a bit on every line I own, but I pay it no attention except to dry it off a bit and grease it. Mostly I ignore it, though.

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