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Fish with Bish Newsletter
August 1999

New Article Much Ado About Nothing

When you write a regular monthly column, as I have been doing for 10 or so years now, sometimes the creative juices just run dry. Still there always seems to be something that happens which gets the juices flowing again – well at least I think they did – you be the judge.

Twist and Shout

Line twist is the bane of anglers. You fire out a cast, and the line clatters up the guides, sometimes even catching on a guide. You shout out some expletives deleted, but that does not solve the problem.

Line twist is easy to identify. Pull some line off the reel, and let it hang limply. Line twist will reveal itself as a series of curling twists.

Some people blame the line itself for twisting. Sorry, but line does not twist by itself. Line twist is always caused by the angler. How do you put put twists in your line? Using swivels that do not swivel is a good method.

But don’t all swivels, swivel, you ask? Of course they do, I reply, but, and there always is a but, they will only swivell under the right conditions.
Too many anglers use a swivel that is too big. Swivels are designed to be fished with lines that match the swivel size. As a rough but good guide, the diameter of the wire used to make the swivel should match the diameter of the main line you are using, not the trace line. If you use too big a swivel there is not enough torque in the main line to swivel the swivel.

Some anglers attempt to use the swivel as a stopper, i.e. in a running rig. The swivel has to be big enough to stop the sinker jamming down on the swivel or passing over it and running down onto the hook. A much better idea is to place a plastic bead above the correct sized swivel.

Using the wrong sized swivel really shows up when trolling. There can be very few methods of building a better line twist problem than when trolling. I have seen line so badly twisted the only cure was to re-spool the reel. Here is some news – line twist from trolling is rarely caused by swivel failure. It is more often caused by incorrect trolling or lure retrieval speed.

Despite their name, most ‘spinners’ are not designed to spin. Most spinning lures should more correctly be called wobblers or shakers. They are designed to wobble from side to side, or move with a tight shimmy. If these lures are retrieved too fast, they will spin in a wide arc, too wide for the swivel to cope.

To avoid this a lure should be dropped in the water where you can see it, and retrieved or trolled, till you can establish its correct speed.
Misuse of spinning reels is a very common method of producing line twist.

When playing a fish, and the fish starts to peel line off the reel, the angler must stop winding. If line winding continues while line is being pulled off the reel, every turn of the reel handle will place, on average, five twists in the line.

Removing Line Twist

Line twist can be removed and it is relatively easy, especially if you have a boat.
Motor the boat ahead at around five knots. Remove all terminal tackle. Feed out around 50m of line behind the boat, and leave it to straighten itself out, after a few minutes feed out another 50m, and so on until all the twist is gone.

You can test if removal is complete by pulling some line, about 1 or 2m, back from the water and allow the line to fall loosely. If the line does not twist you can wind the line back on your reel.
Shore-bound anglers have a real problem. If you are near a rock platform that juts out into a strong current, the ‘boat’ method can be tried. Finding a river is another way.

Another method is to find a beach with no swell, and walk along the beach feeding out line as you continue to walk along the water’s edge, as in the ‘boat’ method.

To remove line twist from a fly line, take off the fly and then slowly let out the line into the river and let it perform its untwisting magic

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