I was watching Henry Wazchuck’s program “Fishing the Flats” He was catching Tarpon on the fly. One of the tips he gave was to take your flyline off the reel and soak it over night in the tub. This, He says, will make it more supple and improve its casting ability the next days fishing. My question is wouldn’t this make it more apt to be waterlogged? Or is there some merit to his tip?
Another thought I had on the same subject was what about subjecting your fly line to chlorine each time you soak it in that tub of tap water.
Another tip he gave which makes sense to me is to take your shoes off while fly casting from a flats boat so if you step on your loose line you will feel it and correct the situation.
The water soaking may work, maybe to circumvent the chlorine problem and get a gallon of distilled water—I tried the barefoot approach and it works well but being from up north, i sunburned the tops of my feet and had trouble walking for a week—make sure you get some sunblock on if you arent used to the sun’s southern intensity.
A few drops of water dechlorinator would work for the chlorine, which really is negligible in the beginning from most water sources. I think a rinse with fresh water would be enough to remove salts though.
I’m with you, if you have any opening in the line it would just soak up water. If you use a nail knot instead of a loop and you ever cut the leader off and replaced it without gluing it shut you would have an area where you would waterlog the tip of your floating line. If you had a new perfect line, maybe it would do it, but I like the idea of cleaning my line with some kind of fly line cleaner / treatment instead.
I use a stripping basket to keep my line away from sharp edges and not stepping on it. The basket has been great for fishing from the boat and for fishing on rocky shores. The idea of no shoes and I think that I would stick a hook into my foot.