[gvillevol]

My local fly shop is about 2 minutes from my house and on my way home from work. Therefore I usually stop in and have a beer and shoot the breeze with the owner and one of his guides while they are shutting down the shop.

Last night I told him I needed some Rio line cleaner. He told me that (he had already done this) the Rio rep for his shop said the best thing to do is put a drop of Dawn dish detergent in some water (fill up a bowl from the kitchen) and clean your line with that mixture.

I am sure that this is old news to some or most of you but it was new to me and it worked great. I really got a kick out of the fact that the Rio rep told him just to use Dawn and water to clean the line . If any others have home remedy tips like this please share.

[jcl]

I've heard this before, but I've always wondered about getting the detergent smell on the line. I take it I'm being overcautious?

[wtex50]

With newer lines being slicker...you don't necessarily want to use a line cleaner unless it is made by that particular line company for specific lines. Other brands may harm the slickness agent your line has.

I have used Dawn for years. With one or two drops...you are not going to get much of a soap[y film...but you should rinse your line in a clean bowl of water and then dry it with a soft cloth and you are good to go

[Jackster]

I've heard otherwise about using detergents on modern fly lines. I believe it can leach the plasticizers and clean so well it can actually slow the line down. SA said something to this effect on their website.
I know for sure the only time my ReCoil guides sang is when I tried cleaning an old line with dish soap. I believe the sound it made was due to friction causing some sort of harmonic.
Ivory bar soap is gentle yet it does a fine jon cleaning real skanky fly lines. A swipe or two with SA/3M line cleaning pads works VERY well on modern like SA with AST and Rio with their new finish (A call to Rio confirmed this to me) The pad simply brings a fresh surface to the top.
Lines cost too darn much to experiment with in my book.

[yatahey]

I'm not sure if this was a good idea or not, but after a couple times fishing a particularly weedy stretch of water I came home and found my line had some dried up weed coup on it.
I'd recently bought some silicone Musclin to dress the Uni-thread furled leader that Joni was kind enough to send me.
I figured what the hey. So I cleaned the line with the enclosed pad in the Musclin tub and it took off the coup off the line and left it slicker than a Montana snot rock. I don't see any adverse affects yet.
Any thoughts on good or bad

[Joe D]

I've used dish detergent for a long, long time to clean my fly lines with no ill effect. It does a good job, you just have to make sure you rinse it well.

I use "official" line cleaner for on the water use; it's more convenient and so far any of the brands I've used do the job. Though, the Orvis blue stuff and the Sci Angler liquid seem to really cut the crud better than most.

I'm far from being a chemist, but for the high tech lines like Sci Angler with AST or Orvis Wonderline to just name two of many, I think using anything that stays there after you apply it defeats the purpose of the coatings and impregnation's and might even hurt the line by sealing dirt in. These are the cleaners that you spray on and leave or the ones that you wipe on and buff off, like car wax.

[Jackster]

Originally Posted by Joe D

I've used dish detergent for a long, long time to clean my fly lines with no ill effect

As I have had clean, slick shooting fly lines using the more gentle Ivory bar soap. The deal about avoiding detergents used to be on the SA website. I feel safe not second guessing them. Since having a cracked finish on a Cortland 333 a couple decades ago, I've yet to have a line let me down.
By the way, when dressing a line that is really skanky, like those I use to teach casting in parking lots and such, a good cleaning and then a Rio Agent X or Glide treatment might not take the oil stains off but they do provide a slick, durable and dry finish from my experience.
Other treatments seem to act like dirt and algae magnets. The 'instant fix' treatment some website folks fawn over seems water soluble. I tried it for a while now and seem to get similar results simply using a wet rag.

I'm nuts about line maintenance and am VERY thankful manufacturers have come out with lines they have. Nothing irks me more than a line that won't feed back when double-hauling... okay... maybe a floating line that doesn't float fresh out of the box irks me more!

[gvillevol]

I agree with some of the posters that I would have been hesitant to put Dawn detergent on my line instead of something the manufacturer recommended or made for their lines. My buddy that owns the fly shop said the same thing but that guides (he was a guide out west over 15 years) have been doing this for a long time. It also didn't hurt that the Rio rep said in person that this was what he would do. I had the Rio line cleaner in my hand and was ready to pay when he said "two drops of Dawn in a bowl of water" and that is all you need.

It isn't uncommon for reps to give people some tips like this from time to time instead of pushing their product. I am an HVAC sales rep for the western part of North and South Carolina and give cheap tips to contractors from time to time. I also would give people cheap tips if you will when I was a ski instructor. I have the Rio Selective Trout II double tapered line and asked the rep if the Dawn would do anything to the Agent X coating and he said without a doubt no. He said that he cleans his line using Dawn and most guys he knows use the same method without hurting their lines. Obviously thats a concern to me when you are talking about a $65 line.

[jimw]

So I cleaned the line with the enclosed pad in the Musclin tub and it took off the coup off the line and left it slicker than a Montana snot rock.

Hey Yatahey

Being from the east coast and i also don't get out much could you tell me what a Montana snot rock is??

[yatahey]

Originally Posted by jimw

So I cleaned the line with the enclosed pad in the Musclin tub and it took off the coup off the line and left it slicker than a Montana snot rock.

Hey Yatahey

Being from the east coast and i also don't get out much could you tell me what a Montana snot rock is??

You never heard of an MSR? It's one of those baseball to basketball sized round, moss/weed covered rocks that lie in wait, just under the surface, waiting for unsuspecting, unprepared waders. MSRs are responsible for more dunkings than a Massachusetts witch hunt.