About the Author

Joe Rotter

Joe is the "blogger in chief" here at Red's in addition to being our guide service manager and partner here at Red's. He is a father of 3 spunky children his wife Kelly can only be found fishing when the temperature gets above 85 degrees and the fish are gobbling up dry flies.

In addition to being a fly fishing junkie, Joe is a hard core bowhunter, is a volunteer Hunter's Eductation Instructor, and loves riding horses with his kiddos. Joe still guides a small part of the time but spends most of his time working on web marketing, travel, and helping customers find the right tools and information for the job.

How to Build Your Own Loop in a Fly Line

November 16, 2016

This fall I sat down to do some work on a couple of fly lines for some upcoming fishing trips and decided that I needed to repost this article from a couple of years ago because its so incredibly helpful. This winter take a look at your old fly lines and perhaps breathe some new life into them by repairing the worn out loops on the end.

How to Build Your Own Loop in a Fly Line

A customer came in the shop today and wanted to go streamer fishing, but he only had a couple of hours and was going to be wading. He was equipped with a floating line which is not ideal for streamer fishing unless you have a boat to work the shoreline.

He wasn't in a position to buy a sink tip line with a spare spool, although I would have loved to sell him one! The best solution here is to buy a sinking leader that he can loop-to-loop onto his existing floating fly line, thus making it a sink tip and getting him in the game.

The only problem was, the fly line he had was older and didn't have a nice neat welded loop like most contemporary fly lines do. The solution... I went "old school" on him and built him a nice loop so that he could attach a sinking leader and swing some streamers. For $11.99 he got a sink tip line and a much better chance at bagging a trophy trout.

I thought this was a technique worth sharing with you guys on the blog.

You can make super strong, neat, and trustworthy loops using just a few materials.

Tools and Materials Needed:

Step One:

Fold the fly line over into a loop, smaller is better but difficult to tie up. Put the fly line and the Maxima into the slot on the nail knot tool. I personally like 10 turns of Maxima over the fly line(s). Wrap it tight and be sure the fly lines don't become crossed or get messy. Tidy is good. As you finish the knot you can adjust the loop size by pushing or pulling the tag end of the fly line. "yank" the Maxima off the tool and properly seat it in place. Try to make it nice and tidy.

Step Two:

Pull the Maxima super tight using hemos on the short end to grip it, and cinch it up very snug. Clip all tag ends of nice and short.

Step Three:

Use some UV Knot Sense to seal the knot up nice and clean. If you do it just right this will smooth out the knot and help it slide through the guides nicely.

Step Four:

Put sink tip on or leader on with loop to loop connection and go catch a fish.

Hi the same method works great if you blow the tip off a MOW Tip and you want to create a new loop. Just use 15lb Maxima rather 40. A darning needle makes a great nail knot tool.