Quote Originally Posted by Gemrod View Post
One more question. A friend states that the Red Mucilin is for silk fly lines only! That it does no good on my plastic fly lines! Is this true? I have always heard the Red was the best. I dunno. I am totally confused now. "All" my lines are sorta plastic. Mixture of SA, Cortland, Aquanova, and Rio. But none of my lines are silk! Sylk...whatever. If I have NO silk lines.....now I am totally lost on how to clean...and what floatant to use.
Red mucilin works great to float the tip of plastic fly lines. Especially if you also grease at least a foot or so of the leader as well.

I must admit though, I clean my lines rather often so there's no buildup of the mucilin. I put some dish soap and water in a bucket and strip about as much line into it as I cast plus a few feet, then pull it through a wet rag and back into a bucket of clear water, then pull it through a dry rag and back on the spool. I've been doing this routine for years and it only takes a few minutes.

Another thing I found helps is to stretch the line good before and while fishing(especially when it doesn't cast right). A couple of times a year I also tie one end off on a tree and stretch the entire line tying off on another tree and leave it that way for a few hours. When you're done, lay the line out on the grass and grip it tightly with a rag and pull it through the entire length without releasing tension. When you get to the end it will start to whip around a bit, that's the twists working themselves out of the line.

A clean and stretched line will cast just about as good as one that's been "lubricated" and there's no worry about using something that could potentially damage the coating. Of course this is only my opinion on it, I'm sure there are plenty of folks that swear by the specialty cleaners. I'd rather spend the extra couple of bucks on more tippet.