After lying virtually dormant for more than a half century, the
technology for making more efficient fly lines was already stirring in
1959 when George Griffith and his friends gathered at his home on the
banks of Michigan's AuSable River to launch Trout Unlimited. Six years
earlier, in preparation for the 1953 fishing season, Cortland Line
Company had introduced what was to become the first commercially
successful fly line made with a new synthetic finish material.
Marketed as the Cortland 333 "Non-Sinkable" Fly Line, the new line was made with
a braided nylon center core and featured a tough non-porous surface
coating that would not admit water and could not become waterlogged in
use as did the earlier standard oil impregnated fly lines. Dry fly
anglers of that era had learned to live with the fact that the older oil
impregnated silk lines would become waterlogged after two or three hours of
steady fishing - and if they planned an all-day trip, they would carry
two or three reels, or spare spools, with dry and freshly "dressed"
lines. When one line became waterlogged and began to sink, another reel
with a fresh line was brought into use. At night the wet lines would be
wound onto a line dryer or strung up between tree limbs where
circulating air could dry them out. Then before use again, the dry
lines were "dressed" by rubbing down the surface with a special line
dressing compound that served to coat the porous oil impregnated surface
to delay the water absorption process as long as possible.
One can now understand the excitement and enthusiastic acceptance to the new 333
lines that would float high, hour after hour, for easy pick-up - and
elimination of the need for dressing. Soon other fly line manufacturers
perfected their own synthetic finish formulations and by 1959 a wide
range of the new generation fly lines was being produced and marketed
by the other leading manufacturers of the day - including Ashaway,
Gladding, Newton, Sunset, Marathon, Shakespeare, and others. Slowly,
but surely, the old oil impregnated fly lines faded away to their place
in history. Now they are highly prized by collectors of antique tackle.
There was another basic difference in the manufacturing procedure
for lines in that era compared to the modern lines we use today. The
center braid was tapered. Using a uniquely modified braiding machine,
highly skilled operators would begin the braiding of a line with sixteen
small threads to produce a braid size that would represent the diameter
of the tip of the line. The tapered shape was accomplished by removing
the small threads and replacing them, one by one, splicing in a
larger replacing thread - gradually, on a carefully designed plan, until
eventually the body diameter was reached. I recall that in order to
make a standard 30 yard double tapered line, the operator was required
to make 96 thread changes to get the taper up and back down again on the
reverse end. One operator could produce only eight tapered lines during
an 8 hour work shift. It was a long and tedious process.
The adoption and wide use of synthetic coatings solved many of the
fly line performance problems of the day - but the movement also created
a new problem. Since the early fly lines were first created - probably
in England - they were identified by sizes expressed with letter
designations that related to diameter. An "H" line measured .025" in
diameter; a "G" was .030"; a "D" was .045"; a "C" was .050", etc. Thus,
an "HDH" double tapered line for trout fishing was made to taper from a
tip diameter of .025" (H) to a body diameter of .045" (D) then back down
to .025" (H) again to complete the line. A "GBF" was a three diameter
weight-forward taper design measuring .030" to .055" to .035" for the
running line. The letter designations served the purpose very well - as
long as all line manufacturers produced lines with braided silk with an
oil impregnated finish coating. The weight factors were much the same -
and an HDH silk line made by one manufacturer would weigh very close to
that of an HDH produced by another maker using the same process.
It is important to understand that it is the weight of the line that
loads the fly rod, and that the diameter is of secondary importance.
The problem occurred when individual manufacturers adopted different
synthetic materials and different finish formulations with varying
weight factors. It was impossible to maintain weight consistancies by
designating line sizes by the measured diameter. A line made of one
material with an HDH size designation could weight as much as 25% more
than another with the same marking produced from another material. The
problem was further intensified with the entry of sinking lines. An HDH
sinking line was obviously much heavier than an HDH floating line, even
though the diameters may have been identical.
It was during a 1959 convention of the American Fishing Tackle
Manufacturers Association that the Line Division collectively decided it
was absolutely necessary to devise industry standards for fly lines to
bring order to a chaotic situation. A committee consisting of Art
Agnew, Sunset Line Co.; Jack Daugherty of Gladding; Bob Crandall of
Ashaway, George Clement of Newton Line Co - and myself from Cortland
Line Co was entrusted with the assignment. Although not an official
member of the committee, a key role was played by the late Myron
Gregory, a tournament caster of note with the Golden Gate Casting Club
of San Francisco. Unmindful of the fact that all were direct
competitors, the members of the committee worked together for months to
formalize the AFTMA Fly Line Standards. The AFTMA Fly Line Standards -
based on the grain weight of the first 30 feet of line regardless of
material density or taper configuration - may not be a perfect system
but it has stood the test of time and have been followed religiously
by all of the worlds fly line manufacturers for more than 40 years.
Today, any angler with the need to select a line to balance with a
6-weight fly rod can by a #6 line - regardless of the brand, whether
level, double of weight-forward taper, floating, sinking or sink-tip -
and feel secure in the knowledge the line he has selected will
match the rod. This was a real breakthrough and many consider the
establishment of the AFTMA Fly Line Standards one of the most
important factors in the sport of fly fishing during modern history.
A major development in the evolution of the modern fly line occurred
during the early 1960's when a grand old gentleman named Leon P. Martuch
decided to try to find an easier way to make a tapered fly line. With a
background in chemistry from his association with Dow Chemical Co., and
a good measure of curious inventiveness, he devised a method of making a
tapered fly line by forming a tapered coating over straight level
braid.
With these lines, he formed a new company called Scientific
Anglers, located in Midland, Michigan - now operated as a division of
the 3M Company. Labor and material costs were rising and it was
apparent to the other manufacturers that the procedure of making lines
by tapering the finish over level braid was a much more cost effective
way of producing lines than the time consuming method of braiding in the
taper. So each individual manufacturer lost no time in developing their
own methods . . . and, to my knowledge, all tapered fly lines are made in
this manner today.
The basic concept of tapering the finish over a level braided core
provided much more flexibility - and led to the development of a wide
range of lines for specialized fly fishing purposes than could never have
been made with the older traditional manufacturing methods. During the
60's and 70's the leading manufacturers were locked in a fierce
competitive duel for market share. The result was a creative binge to
produce new and useful specialty lines.
Sinking lines - in a variety of densities that will sink slow, or fast,
or extra fast - or super sinkers that really get down quickly. There are
Sink-Tip lines with 10', 20' and 30' sinking sections - Nymph-Tip
lines with a built-in strike indicator. There are specialized taper
configurations for larger wind resistant bass bugs and for heavy
duty salt water use - and Shooting Heads for making long casts
with less effort. The innovative approach to fly line designs
has never really ended and is still very active today.
The fortunate recipient for all this activity is the fly rod
angler. The fly fisherman of today never had it so good. By selecting
a fly line made by one of the reputable manufacturers, he - or she - can
enjoy almost flawless performance in fishing with a fly rod in virtually
any fishing situation. ~ J. Leon Chandler (Comparadun)
Publisher's Note: For an article on Leon who was inducted into the
National Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame last year, click
HERE.
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